I lived in Virginia for a few years growing up. We lived in a beautiful modern home, and it had an open floorplan connecting the kitchen, breakfast area, and family room. The family room had beautiful wood floors and a cathedral ceiling (an upstairs balcony allowed people to look down from the upstairs below into the family room). A huge stone fireplace rested against one wall, with a pair of glass doors on either side of the fireplace that led to the deck. One of the nicest things about that house was that I could sit in the family room and talk to my mom while she cooked dinner in the kitchen around 6 o'clock, and she would always play cds on the stereo, usually the Beatles, but sometimes Bonnie Raitt or Steely Dan. That's when I fell in love with the Beatles. I remember sitting on the wood floor listening to the Beatles and thinking, "I wouldn't want to be anyone else in the world." And it was true--I thought about all the kids I could have been born, all the girls around the world in Chinese villages or arid, impoverished deserts that I could have been, and I was so grateful at being so lucky.

That's when an article like the one recently featured in the New York Times about Nike creating a sportier version of the hijab for Somalian refugees in Kenya surprisingly shakes me. Surprisingly, because it's really just a fluff, life-interest type story, but it's so shockingly different from my reality that I have to take notice. The article is about a group of young women--early twenties it seems--who like to keep themselves occupied by playing volleyball. The girls have to wear the hijab, which completely covers their bodies, even in 100 degree heat. But it's not the heat that bothers them so much as all the fabric getting in the way.

"Some people think that if girls play sports they are prostitutes," Ms. Ibrahim said. "Our parents were embarrassed. They had bad feelings about girls playing outside."

. . . .

Life is particularly challenging for girls, who rarely attend school, marry early and then spend their days struggling to feed their many children. Girls in the refugee camps go to school at a significantly higher rate than those whose families remain in war-ravaged Somalia, 58 percent here compared to 7 percent back home, but their lives are still dismal, at best. "Refugee life is very difficult," Ms. Ibrahim said during a break in a volleyball game. "We're away from our motherland. It's like being in prison."

On the volleyball court, however, girls say their troubles fade away for a while. They say they have no time to worry what clan the girl next to them or across the net might be. They also have no time to think about the man their parents might be arranging for them to marry or the work that awaits them when the match is over.

To quote that Jenny Lewis song that keeps going through my head, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Laura Bush: U.S. Ready for Woman President

Laura Bush, loved by conservatives for her intelligence, grace and elegance, and attacked by liberals for being too demure and genteel, believes that the United States is ready for a woman president:

During an exchange with reporters, Mrs. Bush was asked if the United States was prepared to have a woman in the Oval Office. "Sure, absolutely," she replied. "I'm voting for the Republican woman." Mrs. Bush previously has expressed support for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for president, but Rice has said repeatedly she's not going to run.

An interesting footnote is that Mrs. Bush gave this statement while touring the National Museum of Women in the Arts. "The exhibit features archaeological finds from Mexico and Peru that show that, long before Europeans arrived, women served as warriors, governors, artists, poets and priestesses," writes CNN.

Source:
CNN.com, "Laura Bush: U.S. Ready for a Woman President," March 14, 2006.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/14/us.womanpresident.ap/index.html

Wafa Sultan: Muslim Woman Speaking Out

I was forwarded this article from the New York Times about Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-born American whose bold condemnation of Islamic violence has garnered her death threats.

Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.

In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private. . . .

Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."

She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."

She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."

Source:

Jim Broder, "For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats." New York Times. March 11, 2006. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/international/middleeast/11sultan.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=d8a7947221000a9f&ex=1142830800&emc=eta1

Back in Black

Well, I've been MIA for quite some time, regrettably. This is definitely crunch time in school and I'm feeling the pressure. I flew home last week for spring break and got spoiled by that feeling being with my family has of being insulated from the real world and I did absolutely no work. But good things have been happening--most notably, I was offered a summer position with a great employer that will give me really great experience (I may even get to try a few misdemeanor cases!) and maybe even a full-time job offer come September. According to my interviewer, 250 were interviewed over a period of 3-4 months for 20 positions, and, remarkably, I got one of them.

In other news, my letter to the editor appears in this month's Allure regarding the magazine's conflicting messages for women about body image--in one article, they discussed dangerous weight loss and then twenty pages later laud celebrities who lost dangerous amounts of weight last year (La Lohan, anyone?).

So sorry about the delay. I promise to have more good stuff up this week.

SAHM and Latchkey Kids

During what has become quite possibly the week from hell (or shall I say two weeks of hell?), I came across this post at Dooce discussing the pros and cons of being a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) or a working mom with the latchkey kids. I am hesitant to write too much about my own mother, who was herself a SAHM, because I don't think she'd appreciate me writing her business all over the net. But I am intrigued by the discussion (and wow--the over 1500 comments).

I loved having my mom there when I came home from school. Our house was always immaculate, the pantry was always stocked with goodies, my brothers and I could participate in any activities we wanted because she was always there to drive us, and sometimes we'd come home from school and there would be special treats waiting for us (an expensive snack on sale at the local Kroger or a new outfit she picked up while shopping). But more than all the more superficial advantages, it was just really comforting to come home from school and have her there to talk to.

As a law student, I keep oscillating back and forth with the kids question. By the time that I graduate, I will be in my late twenties, and then I will have to work a few years to establish myself and gain experience. Then I would like to try more than one job, I think--and I don't see having kids being possible career-wise or financially until I am in my early thirties. And that's with me working (ah, law school loans!). There's a part of me that would love to have children and give them what my parents gave me: the ability to have access to my mom 24/7, wheneverI needed. But then I cannot help but think: What was the point of all my hard work in college, at my previous job, and now in law school?

I remember one man I dated a few years ago telling me about women in his law firm. Apparently the men loved that the firm hired so many women, because by the time that they were ready to be considered for partnerships, so many women had left to have children that the field of competition was pretty slim. Most of the men became partners; most of the women became mommies. Hearing his snide recitation of this harsh reality made me decide on the spot that I didn't want to abandon my career for children as soon as all my hard work in school was about to pay off.

But this is me talking now. I know that as my parents age and my friends start their families, my biological clock and maternal urge are going to kick in. I just don't know what to do then.