Free Response
While reading the story of Ayann you cannot help but feel sympathy for her. I definitely do not blame her for leaving her life behind and starting a new one. There were so many harsh ideological principles set in place that made it hard for a child to be child. I saw examples of this in the grandmother’s teachings. Ayaan was taught that knowledge of your lineage was most important information that they could know. Another example is the stories her grandmother would tell her. The stories would be sometimes dark and gloomy. The grandmother would tell stories and quotes such as, “A women alone is like a piece of sheep fat in the sun….Everything will come and feed on the fat. Before you know it, the ants and insects are crawling …show more content…
There was so much pressure on being a woman in any of the settings she was in. “Everything in Saudi Arabia was about sin. You weren't naughty, you were sinful. You weren't clean; you were pure. The word haram, forbidden, was something we heard every day. Taking a bus with men was haram. Boys and girls playing together was haram. When we played with the other girls in the courtyard of the Quran school, if our white headscarves shook loose, that was haram, too, even if there were no boys around.” (Ali, pg 42).We can see that being a woman became almost like chore. Women would constantly have to live their lives on watch. Women could not even pray next to or in front of men. The reasoning is that if they do there could be an incident where the cloth would uncover parts of their bodies while praying. There was a huge sense of hyper-sexualization of the female body. If a woman was to be “soiled” she brought incredible dishonor on her and, most importantly, her family. It is no mystery why Ayaan questioned her faith. Why did the law of god make it to where she would have to be inferior to men forever just because she was a woman? This constant questioning along with the traumatic events she had to endure was what pushed her to be an atheist. We can see this in people in the United States as well. I have met countless people who have lived through traumatic events and have questioned their faith because of it. To
While reading the story of Ayann you cannot help but feel sympathy for her. I definitely do not blame her for leaving her life behind and starting a new one. There were so many harsh ideological principles set in place that made it hard for a child to be child. I saw examples of this in the grandmother’s teachings. Ayaan was taught that knowledge of your lineage was most important information that they could know. Another example is the stories her grandmother would tell her. The stories would be sometimes dark and gloomy. The grandmother would tell stories and quotes such as, “A women alone is like a piece of sheep fat in the sun….Everything will come and feed on the fat. Before you know it, the ants and insects are crawling …show more content…
There was so much pressure on being a woman in any of the settings she was in. “Everything in Saudi Arabia was about sin. You weren't naughty, you were sinful. You weren't clean; you were pure. The word haram, forbidden, was something we heard every day. Taking a bus with men was haram. Boys and girls playing together was haram. When we played with the other girls in the courtyard of the Quran school, if our white headscarves shook loose, that was haram, too, even if there were no boys around.” (Ali, pg 42).We can see that being a woman became almost like chore. Women would constantly have to live their lives on watch. Women could not even pray next to or in front of men. The reasoning is that if they do there could be an incident where the cloth would uncover parts of their bodies while praying. There was a huge sense of hyper-sexualization of the female body. If a woman was to be “soiled” she brought incredible dishonor on her and, most importantly, her family. It is no mystery why Ayaan questioned her faith. Why did the law of god make it to where she would have to be inferior to men forever just because she was a woman? This constant questioning along with the traumatic events she had to endure was what pushed her to be an atheist. We can see this in people in the United States as well. I have met countless people who have lived through traumatic events and have questioned their faith because of it. To