Jerri Bird (Speaker) Courtney Reid

The first thing that I would like to mention is that Jerri Bird was a very intriguing woman. She lived in all of these different countries and had the opportunity to embrace these cultures and even develop quality relationships with some of the people that lived in the Middle East as well. She brought to my attention how we tend to forgot about the perspective of women in the Middle East compared to the women in our society. We think that they are reserved individuals that always succumb to needs of the male person in the household. It is not like that in every situation, she brought to our attention that not all of the women should be seen in that type of situation. She told us that “10,000 Palestinian men are in Israeli prison, and that the only parent to be at home was the woman.” I never saw it that way until she brought it to our attention that day. I remember in Unit III The Social World where the media tells us a distorted view of what is actually going on overseas (known as Orientalism). Since we are not there receiving a first person point of view, they tell us about the situation that they want us to hear for not only propaganda reasons (United States patriotism); but also because we are allies with Israel, and there is some conflict between the two cultures. Jerri Bird discussed how she interviewed this woman from Saudi Arabia and she asked her about the wearing of her veil, the women said “Wearing the veil is something that I do not mind wearing, in my society it is common and it keeps me inconspicuous.” Then the woman asked Jeri about our women [society] in the United States. “Why do you women [U.S] portray yourselves as sex objects. Your women are seen in swimsuits on top of cars.” We view them as being reserved individuals when they see themselves as being respectful. We need to put ourselves in their shoes before we are so quick to judge. We need to open our eyes and see what is around us.