Cake for Fighting
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Abstract
Although individual freedom is so integral to western ideology, the idea that culture can supersede an individual’s basic human rights is surprisingly common in the United States. This is due to another western value: the expression of one’s own tolerance. Often, a member of western society who is subjected to a tradition of oppression can be isolated from social groups most equipped to help them. This is true of gender oppression in particular: women subjected to a traditional-honored system intended to strip them of emotional, spiritual, and physical autonomy experience isolation (even while in relationships with persons who would recognize the oppressive practice they’re unwillingly subjected to as abuse). As this continues to occur, outsiders and victims alike wrongly categorize these traditions of abuse as cultural norms that must be tolerated. As a former victim of gender oppression due to my subculture’s traditions, I believe it is important to make patterns of abuse due to gender easier for outsiders and victims alike to identify. Today, some Kurdish women escape oppression due to gender through joining female anti-ISIS military units. This thesis illustrates the female struggle to gain autonomy and self-actualization via a close portrait of the protagonist, Tenik and her two childhood friends, Kejal and Sahe. In this work, Tenik finds herself limited by the oppressive tradition of forced marriage and gender restricted roles in her village. But her journey illustrates the lengths one will go to acquire the benefits of personal autonomy. Through a cultural backdrop unfamiliar to many American readers, I hope to illustrate the realities of gender oppression in a way that emphasizes the universal aspects of the experience.
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Critical review -- Chapters 1-15
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M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts)