Ideas
The ideas and views that one has are usually generated throughout their childhood experiences. The events that one face, the problems that one has to deal with, and the people they encounter all have an impact on the way in which a person views the world. The same goes for Leila Ahmed as told throughout her memoirs, A Border Passage. Ahmed's feminism is one that was rooted throughout her childhood, and as she matured she gained a better sense of how it impacted her life. Although the arena of Egypt gave for an unconscious type of feminism, Ahmed's childhood there rooted her explicitly feminist consciousness later in her life. To compare and contrast the streets of Cairo to the streets of New York is quite opposite. Women are recognized, praised and for the most part respected in Western culture, unlike that of Ahmed's Egyptian homeland. Ahmed grew up in an Egypt that pondered "the issue of identity, a profoundly ambiguous matter for Egypt", which was "deeply inescapably and deeply political" (Ahmed 10). Ahmed also dealt with her own identity, as she questioned and defied many of the ideologies given to women at the time. Ahmed found herself "profoundly confused and conflicted and, forever after, haunted by feelings of d
eep uncertainty" (Ahmed 10). It would take many encounters, events, people and places for Ahmed to gain an identity of not only an Islamic standpoint, but as a woman. Ahmed's early encounter with rape helped to shape her strong feministic views. In today's society, rape is considered one of the worst crimes one can commit, where the offender is always punished severely. This was not the case for Ahmed. After being raped by Freddy, Ahmed received a beating from her mother that "was so confusing and so terrible to the child I was at the time that I have muddled and still pained memory of it" (Ahmed 78). Ahmed did not understand why she was the punished. Why did Freddy do something she knew was wrong, but in turn she was the one who was being reprimanded? This painful encounter created a sense of loneliness and seclusion later in her childhood, and was so pure and overwhelmingly intense that it had tended in her mind to engulf the earlier years as well (Ahmed 76). At the time Ahmed did not understand how the event had changed her as a person; it was not until later that the event helped shape her identity as a feminist. Later, at age fifteen, Ahmed blatantly stated that "I did not want to be like my Mother" (Ahmed 74). Ahmed knew at this early age that her mother was not wanted she wanted to grow up to be like. Ahmed understood the possibilities she had, and was beginning to understand that Egypt was not the place that she was going to be able to accomplish them. Ahmed however did not want to be like her mother because of what society had made her mother to be. Ahmed respected everything that mother
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ahmed's Egyptian, Mother Ahmed, Ahmed123 Ahmed, Freddy Ahmed, Passage Ahmed's, , Islam Islam, America West, Leila Ahmed, ahmed 21, ahmed understand, helped shape, ahmed 21 ahmed, ahmed's feminism, ahmed's childhood, feminist consciousness, ahmed 10, women society, ahmed live, life ahmed,
Approximate Word count = 1096
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
