Happy Women's Day!

Yes, for those of you that don't know, today is International Women's Day.  International Women's Day.  That's interesting, because I'm guessing more than 9 out of 10 Americans not only don't know what International Women's Day is, but also don't celebrate it.  Honestly, I had no clue that March 8th was International Women's Day, and when I told my host mom this, she suggested maybe I hadn't joined the club yet... very funny.

At least in Uganda, the day is celebrated as a public holiday- meaning all government workers and schools get the day off.  From what I can tell, it's a women's appreciation day.  Women, hopefully, don't do any house work including cooking, washing, cleaning, etc.  There are festivals and celebrations all around.  Apparently, when the day was first initiated decades ago, there was quite a backlash from the male community.  Now, it is a widely celebrated holiday, and all of our host families were shocked that Peace Corps was still holding sessions.  I encourage you all at home to do some googling about it!

As for the PCTs in Uganda, we actually spent most of the day exploring gender roles and issues.  Surprisingly, we focused mainly on American gender roles and stereotypes to have a better understanding of what kinds of expectations and assumptions we come from.  Of course, most of the trainees acknowledged that when compared to other countries, America has more equal rights, responsibilities and standards for men and women.  Still, there was harsh debate between the sexes about various topics.  We talked about how women and men are portrayed in the media: for the most part, we focused on the negative aspects (such as body image) for women and the positive aspects for men.  For example, the People magazine we were looking at had an ad for "Fat at Fifteen," some kind of youth weight loss TV show- all of the people on the show were women; however, the men had ads showing them strong, with six packs.  It was interesting that we chose to not focus on the positive images in the media for women, such as Michelle Obama, and the men didn't see their representation as pressure to be more fit or more powerful.  Although we claim America to be so progressive and so equal, it was quite obvious that we still are struggling with these issues at home.

The second part of the activity was to demonstrate the Ugandan gender roles and learning techniques to challenge our communities to be more open minded and flexible.  In traditional Uganda, the woman is supposed to be submissive, do the housework, cook all the meals, take care of the children, be soft spoken and wear only skirts.  In the Buganda region, it is common for women and children to greet men and show respect by kneeling to them, which has been some times uncomfortable for our male volunteers.  On the other hand, the men are supposed to be the decision makers, bread winners and heads of the household.  We discussed these differences based on our homestay, our time in the community and what we have learned from our Ugandan trainers.  As an absurd example, we switched gender roles!  Meaning, all of the men in our group had to play the part of Uganda women, and the women played the part of Ugandan men.  For the most part, we focused on how we can empower Ugandan women and men to work together and establish more equal gender roles, such as talking about how while women may be the ones doing the housework, men are also physically capable of sweeping.

So, in celebration of women's day, be sure to thank and appreciate your mothers, sisters, girlfriends and friends!  Although, and I hope this isn't too antifeminist of me, it makes me wonder why we don't have a men's day as well.

On another lighter note: Language class has been amazing the last few days because we're learning about food, which means we get to eat in class!  The last few classes we've had peanuts, limes, passion fruit and sugar cane.  My new favorite words is ebijanjalo which means beans!