Women Can't Adjust Well to Displacement?

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Although this reading was not part of my assigned readings, I mistook the reading for another assigent and then I finished the reading, when I realized I didn't have to read it. I don't think it was waste of my time because it was really fascinating to see the different portrayal of travelling based on the gender of the authors. "Journeys to the Other Shore" by Roxanne Euben, unravels the unnoticed differences in terms of the perception of travelling.

 Although I didn't "travel" much in my life, I did move from place to place frequently due to my father's work and my mother's work. Ann Arbor is the first place I spent more than three years of my life.  During that time, I had many transitions I had to make. Luckily, I was able to develop a somewhat outgoing personality, so that I wouldn't be afraid to be in a room of strangers. But that also meant that I rarely have any friends from childhood as my best friends. Although I do contact my friends all over the US, I still don't share the memories that they have further strengthened their friendship with, simply because I moved.

Both Western and Eastern civilizations considered the married women to be under the household of the husband's. The woman is always under the control of the "male of the household". Father as a young girl, and husband as a married woman. This still persists today as wife takes on the husband's surname, and (in South Korea) the wife moves under the family registration document of the husband's. Although the perspective of women's value has changed drastically since the writings of Persian Letters, but the significance of these literary works is because of the limitations of women in terms of travelling and adjusting to a new society.

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This reminds me of a novel that I read last year. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. This novel is focused on the roles of a mother and the effects of the absence of a mother. I remember one part distinctively.  Unmarried female artist is frowned upon as not being a role model for the younger girls and that her reason for not being able to get married is her appearance and ridiculous high expectation for a husband. Although single ladies are now looked as independent, young women, it wasn't until very recently that lifestyle was accepted by the society.

The video is Ne-Yo's "Miss Independent", an example of how independent women today are more revered than the traditional dependent women. Another example is "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé. 

I thought of why would women have harder time adjusting to a new environment or look at displacement as more of a feared experience than the same experience for men?


It is quite interesting, because according to a study, women are not any more emotional than men. With that being said, then the emotional transition of both men and women should not be any different in terms of emotions, however, they are viewed as being radically different in Euben's writing. I think part of the reason being is that in order for a woman to really feel at home, I think she needs more than just superficial relationship to really feel at ease. (This is not true for all women, but least for me)

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However, the most important thing to recognize in the two novels compared by Euben is that role of women in that century was much more restricted than the ones today. The sphere that women are allowed to participate in is just within the household. Even within the household, the decisions are ultimately decided by the male of the household.

There are parts of the world that has yet to adapt to the other societies in terms of allowing women to exercise their freedom. That is due to the strong tradition of that culture.

Do you think that we should abolish their practices to establish basic rights of the women in those countries? Or are there other ways to transform the societies treat women unfairly?