I Stand Corrected By These Ladies

1- When at the presence of my sister I am in reverence for her strives and achievements. My half sister is only couple of months older than me. Unlike me, she married early. At a very young age she had two precious boys. In a strange twist of fate, she was left to raise two boys without their father. Despite the difficulties of raising children with limited means, she managed to start and complete her bachelor’s degree, masters and now PhD. One of her boys is at one of top universities in the US.

She is physical and living proof that women can be independent here, albeit tougher in some aspects and easier in others than in the West. So I stand corrected.

2- Illiterate and forced to marry someone she didn’t know at the age of 14, my mother gave birth to 13 of us, and lived with my father for 50 some years, until his death this year. Without her fight to “equal opportunity” to education for all her children, male and females, I am convinced us girls would have been left behind. That is because my father was also illiterate but unlike my mother, and for quite some time he was indifferent to educating girls beyond high school. Needless to say he was later convinced and a strong advocate to our progress towards higher education.

With my mother’s perseverance, we all learned to read Quran at an early age and we all graduated from colleges and universities. Her daughters, professionally, include a medical doctor, a nurse, an engineer, a teacher, an accountant . . . etc.

I still remember her debates with my father to let us drive cars. She reminds me of a quote from the movie My Fat Greek Wedding "if a man is the head of the family, the woman is the neck, she can turn the head where ever she wants" :-)

Understandingly she has some irrational beliefs that will not shake-off, but no one can deny she is amazing!

Again, I stand corrected, progress is rapid here, in one generation we went from illiterate parents to medical and PhD daughters.