Taught to Read: Unlearned

I've been thinking about the cartoon from Malaysia which I posted a few days ago. After the initial laugh, it really is necessary to think about the meaning behind the images. Upon close inspection, you can see that the cartoon uplifts the following formula:

Knowing how to read = Not cooking, sewing, cleaning = Advanced Woman

My skills in logic are very poor, but I at least know that these kinds of deductions are simplistic and untrue. I laugh at myself for thinking that this is a funny cartoon, for believing that it raises important issues surrounding women's issues -- issues of gender equality. Needless to say, it too M. to point out that I missed a large part of the picture.

Embedded in this drawing is the criticism that women in certain parts of the world, in certain cultures, are still being oppressed and abused. The cartoon uplifts the fact that more and more, women are recognizing that they do not have to accept any one else's determination/definition of their places in the world, and that they are able to carve for themselves different niches and create different systems and structures in societies. Women make their own choices, and those choices are not and should not be limited to the domestic realm. Inherent in this cartoon is the acknowledgement that for centuries women have been "kept in place" -- in certain designations -- by the withholding of certain knowledge skills. No more, we say. In these images, we laugh at the folks -- and ourselves -- for thinking so narrowly about women's roles and capabilities.

We've poked fun at those systems and ideologies that have pushed women into certain positions. But at what cost? Here we are assuming that those certain positions are ones of inferiority and illiteracy. Here, in this cartoon, we suggest that those who are able to read, who have managed to learn skills formerly solely reserved for the male scholars, and we suggest that learning to read moves us beyond and thus above those who cook, clean, and sew. Implicit in this is the insinuation that those who cook, clean and sew do not know how to read, and thus do not know how to do anything but those duties -- with unlearned, illiterate, simplistic complacency. How wrong we are! And by saying that we no longer cook, clean and sew b/c we know how to read, we make certain assumptions that betray our superiority complexes. In fact, it betrays a lot more than just our noses in the air. Does being able to read suddenly make us incapable of handling a pot or holding a needle or vacuuming? Unfortunately, we (and I'm acutely aware of my usage of the overly presumptuous and generally sweeping "we" pronoun... yes, I know, let's define who "we" are) still contribute to the problem b/c we join with those who continue to box some of our sisters into strictly defined roles.

I would have appreciated a cartoon that said things a little differently. It would have been more appropos had the woman in the cartoon not only learned how to read, but she could also persuade her spouse with sound argumentative analysis how to cook, clean, and sew. Then she wrote the manual on how to cook, clean, and sew and to how to do it while acting as CEO of an all-female corporation. Then she edited, designed, and printed the book on her own. After which she created a multi-million dollar company that went on to publish thousands of other books by women chefs, designers, teachers, poets, engineers, scientists, and doctors.

Then she went home and showed her spouse how to make a killer filet-mignon. While lacquering the new set of 4-panel photography piece that will be exhibited at her gallery's opening.

Onward, sisters, go!