Pack mentality
(c) Melina Magdalena
Today for the first time, I'm writing directly onto my blog instead of writing something separately and then pasting it in after some consideration. Life is really busy and my priority is to put something up each week, even if it's sometimes not as polished as I'd like for it to be.
This week has been a difficult one. It's so weird how the same kinds of issues crop up in many lives at once, like a fireworks show of synchronicity, or a virus that spreads like wildfire through interconnected lives. Astrology is one way to explain this. Who knows?
The theme of the day seems to be WORK. I'd like to do some writing about work and play, because it's an aspect of life that I find tricky and perplexing. I'd like to think that work and play could be one and the same, as the Anarchist Christians did maintain, but I also like to be able to choose what I do, rather than ask some known or unknown source to be the arbiter of my lifestyle. Clearly, motherhood as vocation is one aspect of this conundrum.
There's something about being a mother that makes me reluctant to crow for my kin this week, though on a family level we have enjoyed a truly harmonious time, during which we've laughed a great deal and appreciated being together as a family. I'm reluctant to say this because like the new mother who fears talking about her baby's sleep pattern, I don't want to disrupt the good times or jinx them by acknowledging them. Silly, isn't it!
I would like to comment though, on an incident that made my heart swell with love and pride for my son this week.
He came home from school and told me that seven of his friends had "nearly been suspended". This surprised me greatly, because it is incongruous with the kinds of friends he generally hangs out with. When I heard what they had done, my heart was chilled and I felt angry at the school's inadequate response to dangerous behaviour. At the same time, I acknowledge this particular form is a new shape of the pack mentality displayed too often by some young men, and perhaps the school wasn't sure how to deal with it.
The story goes that as on any school evening these days, a boy started a conversation on msn with somebody else. That somebody else is a girl from the school whom few people like. She is brash, loud, unpleasant and fat.
(If this is starting to sound like the way the men of interest describe Dianne Brimble , please note - I don't think this is a coincidence.)
More boys were invited to join this conversation, which rapidly degenerated into a vile and extremely personal attack on this girl. My son was invited twice into this conversation, but signed himself out both times, because he didn't think it was funny and he didn't want to participate.
The girl printed out the conversation and showed it to her mother, who took it to the school, which led to the seven boys almost getting suspended. They were not suspended, because the school said it was really a police matter to deal with such assaults.
Assault is the word used by the school. My son objected to this word and said the girl should have simply signed herself out of the conversation. He interpreted her behaviour as one calculated to get the boys into trouble.
I'm not sure about this. To me, this sounds like victim blaming. To me, those boys should not have ganged up to attack her, and I don't believe there is anything she could have done to provoke them to attack her.
This was a cyber attack, but it's no less an attack than a group of boys in a car who see a classmate on the side of the road, and pick her up on a joyride that leads to a pack rape.
Yes, it's important for girls and women to learn to avoid situations that lead to victimisation, and to learn to intervene in them and to fight back when that is the best option, in order to survive them and not be destroyed.
And isn't it sad that that every woman knows that younger women will inevitably be faced with situations in which they may very well be victimised and attacked in this way?
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Fearless Girls
Fearless Girls
Book recommendation!
© Melina Magdalena, September 2006
I would like to recommend Kathleen Ragan’s Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: heroines in folktales from around the world (1998, Bantam Books) as a fantastic read for everyone I know.
My sister gave this book to my daughter in 1999, with the inscription “Happy 8th birthday! I hope you enjoy these stories about girls and women all over the world.” It has sat on her shelf for these past years, but I picked it up and read it last week from cover to cover.
This book will be very useful for teachers of English as a Second Language, as it includes authentic folk tales from cultures all over the world. What is special about these folktales is that the protagonist in every case is a woman. Many of the stories reflect predominant gendered roles inherent in the cultural values of their people of origin, but a significant number of the stories also challenge these roles, and a few stories of female tricksters are also included.
In those stories that centre around traditional cultural outlooks in which girls are married off to men in order to have babies and raise them, when misfortune strikes, or when the husband’s behaviour is less than desirable, these women heroes find truly amazing ways to turn their lives around and to be successful.
Some of the girls in these stories pose as men in order to right a wrong or prove themselves. They are proud of their ability to match the males around them, and step defiantly out from behind their masks to take their rightful places as women, at the end of these stories.
As Ragan states in her introduction, she chose the stories through an exhaustive scholarly study of folktales, and selected those tales in which the female protagonists survive the ends of their stories. She writes,
“One of the greatest dilemmas was the definition of a heroine. The following criteria served as a guideline: The main characters are female and they are worthy of emulation. They do not serve as the foil to the ‘good’ character in the story, and they are not wicked queens, Mother Miserys, or nagging mothers-in-law. A second criteria was that the tale must centre in and around the heroine.”
Telling our stories is a way of keeping our experiences alive. Folktales often develop out of real events and the interpretations of these. They inspire hope and admiration. When women are the heroes of these stories, they are painted in their true colours as ingenious, clever, loyal, resourceful and determined.
I found the stories valuable in providing windows into the cultural realities that often seemed strange and exotic to me. The book as a whole challenges me to be the very best woman I can be, to protect those around me from male abuse, and to stand up and speak for what I believe in.
Book recommendation!
© Melina Magdalena, September 2006
I would like to recommend Kathleen Ragan’s Fearless Girls, Wise Women & Beloved Sisters: heroines in folktales from around the world (1998, Bantam Books) as a fantastic read for everyone I know.
My sister gave this book to my daughter in 1999, with the inscription “Happy 8th birthday! I hope you enjoy these stories about girls and women all over the world.” It has sat on her shelf for these past years, but I picked it up and read it last week from cover to cover.
This book will be very useful for teachers of English as a Second Language, as it includes authentic folk tales from cultures all over the world. What is special about these folktales is that the protagonist in every case is a woman. Many of the stories reflect predominant gendered roles inherent in the cultural values of their people of origin, but a significant number of the stories also challenge these roles, and a few stories of female tricksters are also included.
In those stories that centre around traditional cultural outlooks in which girls are married off to men in order to have babies and raise them, when misfortune strikes, or when the husband’s behaviour is less than desirable, these women heroes find truly amazing ways to turn their lives around and to be successful.
Some of the girls in these stories pose as men in order to right a wrong or prove themselves. They are proud of their ability to match the males around them, and step defiantly out from behind their masks to take their rightful places as women, at the end of these stories.
As Ragan states in her introduction, she chose the stories through an exhaustive scholarly study of folktales, and selected those tales in which the female protagonists survive the ends of their stories. She writes,
“One of the greatest dilemmas was the definition of a heroine. The following criteria served as a guideline: The main characters are female and they are worthy of emulation. They do not serve as the foil to the ‘good’ character in the story, and they are not wicked queens, Mother Miserys, or nagging mothers-in-law. A second criteria was that the tale must centre in and around the heroine.”
Telling our stories is a way of keeping our experiences alive. Folktales often develop out of real events and the interpretations of these. They inspire hope and admiration. When women are the heroes of these stories, they are painted in their true colours as ingenious, clever, loyal, resourceful and determined.
I found the stories valuable in providing windows into the cultural realities that often seemed strange and exotic to me. The book as a whole challenges me to be the very best woman I can be, to protect those around me from male abuse, and to stand up and speak for what I believe in.
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