Amendment

What is noticeably lacking in my previous post is an intervention from the American who believe what was happening at the flag ceremony was wrong.

Since freshman year of high school, maybe because it was my first foray into being entirely out of my element, I have been a timid person some of the time. Add in a new culture, a second and third language, the longest I’ve ever not lived in Missouri and being surrounded by people who really really don’t know me and that sometimes rapidly approaches most of the time.

This is not a post about finding my footing, but about how even as I do, my gender has kept me slipping more than I can ever remember previously.

The sexism here is subtle. It’s in the way people address my male postmate instead of me when we’re together. It’s in the way females hold their hand, a sign of deferment, when shaking the hand of a male. It’s in the tendency to send male children to school before the girls.

It’s also blatant. Fathers eat before the rest of the family. Girls are late to my class because male teachers have told them to fetch them water or food. I am one of four women that I know who holds a job other than selling products in the market every five days.

The questioning of my knowledge and views and ideas as both an outsider and a woman is more than anything what keeps me quiet in certain situations.

Speaking up is easier said than done. But I’m trying. Not just for my sake, but for the girls that I’m teaching not only English, but how to have power in an utterly male-dominated society.