While in Ghana, I couldn’t help but think about my group’s discussion of NGOs in Ghana and their work, and compare these things to the realities that we saw on the ground. I still have a lot of questions, but my post is long overdue, so observations + questioning will have to be sufficient for now!

During our project, one of the more resonant questions for me was, “How do NGOs collaborate and is this collaboration successful?” I think this question guided some of my observations during the trip.

Observations: Looking around the Dalun Youth Association (DYA) building, I saw some posters, asked some questions. All this happened very quickly, so I’m not 100% this is the correct information, but I’ll relay what I remember and wrote down.

DYA exists to bring the youth together – students gather here and “because they are together, they are stronger and can advocate for the needs of the community, what they see the community needs to develop” (field notes), like new roads to Tamale (which I would also advocate for, for both selfish and unselfish reasons). DYA uses sports as a tool for development – in this rural community, athletic competition is a perfect way to bring people together, both young and old. Once the people are gathered, the youth can spread their message of change. And this message is much more powerful coming from a vibrant, organized youth group.

-Bitch is currently running a series of articles on their blog about fictional women in politics. Here are the first couple of articles. Considering our future discussions of conservative women in politics, I thought some of us might be interested to read them.

-Some more information about Pussy Riot, though admittedly not much more than what was presented in class. Here is their LJ, though it is in Russian so that is of debatable use to the class. This entry, however, is in English, apparently taken from an article when they were interviewed. They have a lot of comments on that entry, including more news clips of them. 

-Tigerbeatdown, the site I mentioned in class.

Notes from Halberstam's lecture. In general, I found the material accessible and engaging, which is one of the reasons why I think referencing Lady Gaga worked well. However, it did seem very hard for people to separate Halberstam's use of the word ("reclaiming" of the word) "gaga" from Lady Gaga.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/410720/march-15-2012/march-15--2012---pt--2

I thought the class might enjoy the above video clip from the Colbert Show.

This post is to reflect on the process of researching children's literature in Ghana and share what this research project has taught me. Besides the obvious process of learning something new about a country I was generally unfamilar with, this project gave me a chance at reimaging literacy from a different point of view. I found it difficult not to compare my own life as a child with the children who were reading the literature that we researched. Until recently, children's literature in Ghana was imported from other countries and featured characters that were completley dissimilar from the readers. Children who wanted to read or who were told to read had no choice of what they would like to read; they associated books with only having characters that were unlike them. Relating to the content of the story was difficult and encouraged these children to think in a way that devalued their own identity because of the emphasis on other stories.

I find myself stuck on the idea of trying to figure out Callie's/Cal's gender and sexual orientation. I've been having a hard time trying to figure out how to think about Cal without worrying so much about how he was raised as a girl and is now a man. Despite the fact that I knew that Cal was intersexed from the beginning of the book, I don't believe that I questioned Cal's gender until the moment that the book started to question it. Before this journey into Cal's sex and gender started taking place, I was under the impression that Callie was a young girl who might possibly be attracted to other women. Starting with her first kiss with the girl next door to her obsession to her best friend's body made me think that Callie could be a lesbian. 

I don't feel comfortable trying to 'figure out' Cal's sex, gender, or sexual orientation or his reasoning behind them. Cal was aware of his attraction to women before visiting the doctor, but did he question his gender? Does this matter? Why does this book that is about so much (history, Greek family, gender roles, immigration etc.) focus on Cal's intersexuality and why does it have to conclude with a definite gender. I feel that Cal was forced to decide on his gender. I think that Middlesex is a great example of the forcing of individuals into categories, whether it be gender, sex, sexual orientation etc. 

The component of my group project on Ghanaian children's literature that I found most provactive returned to the notion of identity that we have already touched on throughout the semester. In researching the growth of children's literature in Ghana, the same emphasis on the necessity of familiarity came up. For too long, Ghanaian children, if exposed to age-appropriate literature at all, were confronted with stories of white children, apples, rain and snow--stories that in no way related to their own experiences. The content was irrelevant to their lives. Beyond the simple misfortune of this fact, I am sure such books were entirely confusing as well.

I tried to convert this issue of identity and accuracy to my own life. But as a white, middle class girl, the content of the literature I read was never an issue. The characters looked like me, talked like me, lived in houses like me and even faced the same challenges I did. The stories I read as a child acted as an affirmation of my life, proof that my appearance and experiences were shared and "right."

I wonder then, just what the impacts of irrelevant literature have on children. On the one hand, as mentioned, I think the affirmation of experience is entirely important at a young age. On the other, exposure to other lifestyles is beneficial. Ultimately, I think it can be agreed upon that a mesh of both is ideal. Yet for too many children in Ghana this was not an option.

On the topic of Middlesex, I came across a film called Tomboy.  It's a French film from 2011 and it tells the story of a 10 year old girl, named Laure, who decides to introduce herself as a boy to other children when she moves towns.  She interacts with her new friends as a boy while she acts like a girl at home.  It reminded me of Middlesex since it touches on the idea of transgender/transsexualism at a young age.  It also has the same idea of "rebirth" since both main characters experience a point in life where they are "reborn."  Although Cal's case is slightly different since he is intersex while Laure is biologically female.  Both the film and novel exude this kind of subversive sadness.  I felt almost helpless at some points of the movie and novel because there wasn't anything I could do.  I am still trying to process formally what my emotions and my thoughts are for these books...

Being that this is a story that displays hermaphoditism through the eyes of a teenager, it's no surprise that a lot of the book is centered around the physical body. Most of the scenes with Dr. Luce really emphasized what had already been the present throughout most of the book about the importancy of physical attributes as well as physical attraction.

The scene where Luce shows porn to Callie to see what sex she was attracted to really bothered me. Being physically attracted to someone, to me, doesn't necessarily mean you're more male or more female (especially thinking about the controversy surrounding the idea that changing your gender is a way to escape homosexuality). Judging Callie's dominent gender based on sexual attraction wouldn't show the type of attraction that Callie has for the Object which to me is a better indicator of her gender than anything. Of course Luce wouldn't know Callie's feelings about the Object because Callie is hiding that from him, but I felt like a lot of his questions were only surface level questions since most of what he's basing his diagnostics off of is in fact gender sterreotypes. 

It just makes me think about how sex can never determine your gender in the way that Callie's physical appearance (the way she carries herself, speaks, write, ects) can never determine which of her genders is more prominent. I've felt throughout this book that Callie's hermaphoditism doesn't affect her as much as it affects people around her (her parents, friends, etc) which makes me believe that it's not so important to her.

To be honest, I can't remember the first time I felt "gendered," it's a difficult moment to pinpoint in my life. I was told I was a "little girl" then a "big girl" then a "teenaged girl" then a "young woman," and I've come to accept this sort of consistency without much question or consternation. The earliest memory I have that I would account to being clearly defined by gender is in 2nd grade. It was lunch time. We had just gotten the KidPix computer game in the classroom. A boy I had a crush on and some of his less remarkable friends were fooling around with it and I wasn't very interested until I saw my Leah, one of my best friends, red in the face and sobbing. Someone said it had something to do with what Ryan, the boy I liked, and his friends were doing on the computer. I went over to look at what would upset Leah so much and I saw it: A little cartoon that slightly resembled her with a handle bar mustache paired with the title 'Sir Leah.' Oh dear. This was unquestionably offensive!  Girls were not supposed to have facial hair! Let alone fully developeed mustaches! And Leah did have a weirdly fuzzy upper lip...But that was besides the point! Her girlhood was being questioned and the fellow sisters of Sister Theresa Mary's homeroom were not going to stand for it. We waged a brutal playground war against the boys that day. And by doing so, we proved that Leah was still a girl and she did not and would not ever have something as despicably un-girly as a mustache.