Final Presentation Day and Class Discussion

Yesterday was the last day of our group's presentation. We wanted to hold a discussion about what we had done in the past week. First we started discussing the speakers we brought in. We actually got the second speaker from Egypt to come back for the last hour of class and talk with us again. I found it interesting what she said about in Egyptian families, women are the queens of the household and make the majority of the decisions. I also found it interesting that she said Islam is very sex-positive for women and if a woman is not sexually satisfied, that is grounds for divorce because to not allow it may push the woman to commit adultery. We also discussed the first speaker, Gulnar, and how she talked about the day her daughter started wearing the hijab. Gulnar said she would have told her daughter to wait to wear it, but instead did not say anything. We were trying to determine her reasoning behind saying that. Some people said they felt she wanted her daughter to fit in into American culture and that would make her daughter seem like more of an outsider. I found this confusing because it seemed like Gulnar would want her daughter to embrace the different aspects of their culture, including wearing the hijab. I liked though how she allowed her daughter to make her own decisions and did not force her to do anything she didn't want to do. We also discussed the film and the role the men play in the film. John said he noticed that all the men seemed to be portrayed as irrational and controlling. We thought that Fereshteh's husband was the most controlling because he bought her freedom, he had the ultimate control over her family for her entire life. Overall, I think everyone agreed that there will always be disagreements on how to follow customs and laws because everyone has their own interpretation of the laws.