My inner feminist flexes her muscles (written January 27)

I just had a very unsettling conversation with a relatively progressive (or so I thought) Gambian male I will not identify here, and I really feel the need to share the experience. He has been helping us fix a problem with our stove and he asked what I was going to cook for Jacob once it was fixed. I responded that we always cook together, and we will cook many things, both Gambian and American. He proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes or so lecturing us on how a man should NEVER do things like cooking or laundry or sweeping (unless there is no woman around to do it).

We tried everything we could think of to gently tell him that in America men and women share household work because that is the fair thing to do, that we are here to learn Gambian culture but not to give up parts of American culture that are important to us, that we do everything possible to act Gambian when we are out in the community but our home is our private space where we do what we want, etc etc. He refused to back down and kept asking me to promise that I would do all the cooking (I would be allowed to let Jacob help if he wanted, but only occasionally and I should not rest while he is helping). After simply refusing wasn't working, I repeatedly said "we'll see" and "maybe," but he wouldn't take that either and kept pushing. At one point Jacob stepped in and tried to defend/support me and was reprimanded and told not to. When a woman gets married, this man said, she understands her role will be to do household work. He said that even if that is not the way things are done in America, we are in the Gambia, we are here to learn the culture, and if we want to learn the culture, it is important that we start following Gambian gender roles, even in our home. I asked him what he thinks Jacob should be doing while I'm cooking, whether he should just be resting and brewing attaya, and he said yes. I responded by asking him how he would feel if he had been born a woman and had to do all that work while his husband sat and relaxed. He simply responded that he is sympathetic to all the work women do, but not enough to help them. The concept of putting oneself in another's shoes (or bitik flip flops) does not seem to exist here. Rather ironic since it is essentially the title of this blog, hm?

Needless to say, this was an extremely distressing encounter for me. This man was coming in and telling us how we should run our household. Demanding, in fact, that we promise to run it the way he thinks we should. And on top of that, he was claiming that we weren't really trying to learn Gambian culture if we didn't do so! What right does he have to do that?? It would be one thing if he was complaining about our interactions with the community...but this was criticizing our private lives...not ok in my book. However, this is coming from an older man in a position of power (who has helped us a lot already on top of it), so we very clearly needed to be respectful. Also, Peace Corps is very clear that the second goal of our service is to share American culture with Gambians, and this was a golden opportunity to do that. So bite your tongue, be respectful, and teach this man about American culture while he is telling me in no uncertain terms I should be doing all the cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc, while my husband lounges around and sips tea. Riiight. All things considered, I think I did pretty well (Jacob only had to give me warning glances a couple times), but controlling myself was one of the more difficult things I've had to do in a while. I'll be culturally sensitive until I'm blue in the face out in the community, but do NOT come into my house and tell me that if I want to learn Gambian culture I have to work myself to the bone while my husband sits around doing nothing. Arg. I'm sure this is only the first of many such encounters to come, so my hope and dream (as far-fetched as it may be) is that if this conversation occurs again two years from now, it will go quite a bit differently...