Dreams of Trespass: Defining the Frontier
In Fatima Mernissi’s widely acclaimed book Dreams of Trespass, the storyline weaves around the tale of a young girls’ life in a traditional Moroccan harem that is as much enchanting as it is disparaging. As we follow the young girl from day to day and experience all the little trivialities of her life, we notice that she is quite a precocious little child. She is constantly questioning, in fact, her mother and aunts constantly tell her that she should stop asking questions all the time. At first glance, it seems as if her questions are of little or no importance and that they are merely things any young child would ask as they are stepping out into the real world. But upon closer examination, we can see that it is really the life in the harem that she is questioning. The truth is that the frontier is one of the main entities that shape her life and being:
No one answered her questions. In a harem, you don’t necessarily ask questions to get answers. You ask questions just to understand what is happening to you (Mernissi, 22).
It is because she sees how the frontier seems to be changing everything about her and her surroundings that Mernissi decides that she must figure out exactly how it works, before everything she knows slips under her feet. We will also see how the young Mernissi has an almost paradoxical relationship with the different frontiers. For her, it is both a source of happiness and a source of pain; it is mysterious to her but at the same time, she can feel how it smothers her and the other women. At the beginning, it is very obvious that she feels very overwhelmed by the frontier:
But since then, looking for the frontier has become my life’s occupation. Anxiety e...
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... to turn ruthless.” (Mernissi, 241, 242).
It is here that our young protagonist finally feels and understands what for years she has only experienced listening to the stories of the women in the harem. That day, she experienced her first feeling of prejudice.
In the end, all the questions and misunderstandings that Mernissi was trying to understand, was wrapped up in one day when Samir and her were forced to grow apart. As we have seen, the frontier is indeed made up from different circumstances, identified by different individuals and administered by different powerhouses, but the main thread that runs through all of them is the distinctive oppression that divides everyone into strictly regulated categories. The definition that Mernissi had been longing to discover, in the end, was nothing but prejudice. Pre-packaged into the physical boundaries of the harem.
Policing is a very difficult, complex and dynamic field of endeavor that is always evolves as hard lessons teach us what we need to know about what works and what don’t work. There are three different Era’s in America’s policing: The Political Era, The Reform Era, and The Community Problem Solving Era. A lot has changed in the way that policing works over the years in the United States.
I am responding to the request to analyze Radley Balko’s article, “What You Eat Is Your Business” and make a recommendation for or against publication in The Shorthorn at University of Texas at Arlington. In order to respond, I have examined the rhetorical appeals of Balko’s piece and determined why this article should be posted in the next edition of The Shorthorn. I believe that the Shorthorn audience would be interested in what is being discussed regarding of obesity, things that could potentially affect their lifestyle as well as the professors. In “What You Eat Is Your Business”, Balko claims that obesity is the responsibility of the individual not the government, and how our government is allowing American to live an unhealthy lifestyle
...ionalists’ quest for women’s rights. The Mernissi women figth against a physical barrier showing solidarity toward each other, and teaching their children to stick to those of their gender. She is taught to be strong and to never depend on anyone of the opposite gender to save her, while at the same time she is taught that ultimate happiness happens with a good man, in a good relationship. The opening of the harem is gradually coming to the Mernissi household. Fatima is young enough to not be radically affected by the close doors, in great measure thanks to her mother who makes sure she is never measured any lower than anyone of the opposite gender. The effects of gender subjugation and the haremnization of women persist through out the decades even after the doors have been opened. Asya is a perfect example of seemingly open freedom but severe psychological damage.
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Best selling author of Eat This, Not That, David Zinczenko’s article “Don’t Blame the Eater,” blames the fast food industry for the growing rate of obesity in the United States. Zinczenko’s main idea is that fast food companies should have warning labels on all the food they supply. Zinczenko believes that since health labels are put on tobacco and preserved food product, fast food industries should put labels on today’s fast food. Discussions about the availability of fast food compared to healthier alternative were brought up as well. Zinczenko states that when looked at, a salad from a fast food restaurant could add up to half of someone’s daily calories (155). He believes that because of fast food, Americans are having more health risks, which includes an insane rise in diabetes. Some agree with Zinczenko saying fast food companies should be the ones responsible to show people the truth about their foods. On the other hand Radley Balko, a columnist for FoxNews.com, states that fast-food consumption ...
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When it comes to culture, different views can cause major conflicts, and these said conflicts occur in the novel Persepolis. The book is a memoir about Marjane Satrapi, also known as Marji, growing up in Iran under the Shah’s rule and the Islamic rule. Even with the many different cultures in Iran, she stuck up for what she believed in and rebelled against the things she thought were wrong. In Persepolis, Marjane’s growth is affected by various aspects of culture including religion, government, and social organization.
In the short story, “Girl,” the narrator describes certain tasks a woman should be responsible for based on the narrator’s culture, time period, and social standing. This story also reflects the coming of age of this girl, her transition into a lady, and shows the age gap between the mother and the daughter. The mother has certain beliefs that she is trying to pass to her daughter for her well-being, but the daughter is confused by this regimented life style. The author, Jamaica Kincaid, uses various tones to show a second person point of view and repetition to demonstrate what these responsibilities felt like, how she had to behave based on her social standing, and how to follow traditional customs.
In both Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” and Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, we see that there are two types of women who arise from the demands of these expectations. The first is the obedient woman, the one who has buckled and succumbed to become an empty, emotionless shell. In men’s eyes, this type of woman was a sort of “angel” perfect in that she did and acted exactly as what was expected of her. The second type of woman is the “rebel”, the woman who is willing to fight in order to keep her creativity and passion. Patriarchal silencing inspires a bond between those women who are forced into submission and/or those who are too submissive to maintain their individuality, and those women who are able and willing to fight for the ability to be unique.
A lady is an object, one which men attempt to dominate. A man craves to get a hold of this being beneath his command, and forever have her at his disposal. In her piece “Size Six: The Western Women’s Harem,” published in 2002, Fatema Mernissi illustrates how Eastern and Western women are subjugated by the control of men. Mernissi argues that though she may have derived from a society where a woman has to cover her face, a Western woman has to face daily atrocities far worse then ones an Eastern woman will encounter. Moreover, Mernissi’s core dogma in “Size 6: The Western Women's Harem” is that Western women are not more fortunate than women raised into harems in other societies. Additionally, she asserts that though women in the Western world are given liberties, they coincide with the unattainable ideals of what is aesthetically pleasing. Furthermore, to strengthen her argument towards her wavering audience, Mernissi’s main approach in her paper is to get the reader to relate with her issue by means of an emotional appeal, while also utilizing both the ethical and logical appeal to support her thesis.
The last frontier of the United States was a great time period where Americans and immigrants from around the world came and settled for new land. It was a time where the federal government encouraged western settlement and economic exploitation. The United States of America came of age after the civil war. In a period of less than fifty years, it was transformed from a rural republic to an urban state. The frontier had vanished. Great factories and steel mills, transcontinental railroad lines, flourishing cities, vast agricultural holdings marked the land. And in them came accompanying evils: monopolies tended to develop, factory working conditions were poor, cities developed so quickly that they could not properly house or govern their teeming populations, factory production sometimes outran practical consumption. The American frontier was an escape and a place of hope for those willing and able to take their futures into their own hands.
Throughout the novel Marji is constantly trying to figure out who she is and who she is going to become. But by the end of the novel Marji evolves into an independent woman who does what she wants with her life to make her happy, something that would never have happened without the influence of women throughout her life. Works Cited Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. Pantheon; First Edition, 2004
She then talks about great men such as Mussolini, Pope, Napoleon and Goethe and how they viewed women. After discovering their opinions, the narrator is bewildered at her findings. These men are praised for their philosophies and wisdom, yet they all view women as being inferior. The narrator is pointing towards the fact that these men in reality are quite ignorant. During th...
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