I just read a post that really traumatized me:
She came to my office yesterday and I ended up talking to her for more than an hour, missing the class I was supposed to be teaching, because she started using expressions likemaybe I should just end it all when talking about her anger and frustration and rage at feeling so utterly helpless in her situation. When I asked her what she meant, she said she was thinking of just surrendering to her parents and doing what they want her to do, that maybe marriage–any marriage, to any man–was really the only way she would ever get out from under her parents’, but mostly her father’s, rule. . .
She is the youngest child in her family and so finding a suitable husband is an important goal for her parents. Once they do so, they will have fulfilled one of their primary obligations as parents to their daughters and, in fact, my student is not entirely opposed to the idea of marrying a man her parents find for her. She just wants him to be someone she feels compatible with, someone in whom she can find something that attracts her; but the men they bring for her to meet, while they are well established and could take good care of her, in the way that “good care” is defined in her culture, they have all been, she says, not only boring, but really, really (to her taste) ugly. What she wants is the freedom to choose her own husband.
I wouldn’t engage in such a conversation with any of my students because I don’t think it’s appropriate. I’d direct them to a counselor or a therapist and remind them that I’m neither.
However, here, on my blog, I can express what I think about this. My advice to anybody who finds themselves in this kind of situation is to tell your parents to stuff it and to bugger out of your life immediately. They are horrible people who hate you and who want to cannibalize your life. All the blathering about culture and religion is a sham aimed at concealing how much they abhor and detest their own child. And anybody who “tolerantly” dances around such a terrifying story is nothing but a coward.
Slavoj Žižek reminds us where this condescending acceptance of barbarity is likely to lead us:
What lurks at the horizon. . . is the nightmarish prospect of a society regulated by a perverse pact between religious fundamentalists and the politically correct preachers of tolerance and respect for the other’s beliefs: a society immobilised by the concern for not hurting the other, no matter how cruel and superstitious this other is.
The author of the post, of course, chickened out and instead of speaking to the woman in question honestly, dished out to her a set of quasi-tolerant platitudes whose uselessness he recognizes perfectly well:
I respect her desire to find a solution that somehow harmonizes with her parents’ (and community’s) religious and cultural expectations, while allowing her the freedom she wants. (Whether or not that is possible, of course, is a whole other question.)
It’s easy to dismiss people in pain by telling them that they should “somehow harmonize” the patriarchal needs of their families to dispose of their lives as if they were cattle with their own desire to reclaim the right to their existence. It must be very comforting to believe, as the post’s author does, that taking a Women’s Studies course will help the woman in question to do that. The condescension implicit in such a suggestion is truly shocking, though.
This situation has absolutely nothing to do with cultures and religions. Every culture has parents who consume their children’s lives. (There are many more posts on this blog that describe the same kind of devouring parents in the US and Canada. I can also offer a list of examples from here to the Moon of similar situations arising in my Eastern European culture.) The only reason why the post’s author fails to see that there is nothing culture-specific about this situation is his pseudo-Liberal need to condescend to people who come from other countries.
The only good thing about the post I quoted is a response from a reader called Josef:
Parents who think they should be able to choose their children’s spouses/careers/education are evil beings who do not deserve children, and that’s what I would have told her.
Hear, hear, Josef! I only wish there were more people who could respond to such situations without resorting to the verbiage of “privilege,” “multi-culturalism,” “ethnocentrism,” etc. Sadly, this is what most of the participants on that thread did. They were obviously driven by fear of hurting some vile jerk by having an honest and strong reaction to barbarity that conceals itself under the mantle of cultural difference.
Clarissa's Blog 
Thank you for this post. I admit I too often fall prey to political correctness and tolerance for the sake of tolerance. It is good to be reminded that this makes me “…immobilised by the concern for not hurting the other, no matter how cruel and superstitious this other is.”
Not all opinions are worth tolerating.
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Thank you for the support, dear GMP!
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Remember that all white Westerners are evil selfish colonists so it is important we soothe our collective guilt through tolerance and support of the Other’s right to practice hideous things like chattel marriage and female circumcision. /totaljokepost
“I’d direct them to a counselor or a therapist and remind them that I’m neither.”
That really sounds like it would have been Prof. Newman’s best course of action. It’s a messy shit of a situation when taking control of one’s body and life means potentially being cast out by one’s family and community. I really feel for the student, because I’ve taken that risk more than once (different issues though), but this kind of thing seems like it would be best left to the care of those professionally trained to handle it.
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And have you seen anything as condescending as “Take a Women’s Studies course” in response to this? Like this person’s problem is that she hasn’t read enough feminist theory. Jeez.
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Yeah I know I’d still be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen if I hadn’t ever forced my way through Butler’s prose.
Speaking of, I’d better get back to slogging through Kant’s critique of judgment. How else am I ever going to know what’s pretty?
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After torturing myself with Kant and Butler, I’ll take my Zizek any time over them. 🙂 At least, he’s funny.
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” I will encourage her again, to register for a women’s studies course; I have given her contact information for South Asian women’s organizations (and I know she has called at least one of them); I have told her about the student women’s group on campus; and I have, of course, told her she is welcome to keep coming to talk to me, but there really isn’t much else that I can (or should) do.”
This all sounds ok probably except that women’s studies course thing (no woman needs to read Ortner to know that being forced into an unwanted marriage is shitty and horrible) and having her come talk to him about it again since he has made it clear he hasn’t really a clue what to do.
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This just sparked something in my head: Teachers from elementary and high school are required by law in the U.S to report any abuse that’s been reported to them or that they suspect could be an abusive situation, whether that’s emotional, physical, or sexual, to the authorities. Are there any similar rules for college professors?
If I were the professor, I would have given her the card of the university’s counselling and psychological services. Every single campus should have one.
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And racism… the dark other of tolerance and multiculturalism.
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And this whole liberal guilt thing cuts the other way, too, especially if you happen to be one of those actual “evil colonials” (a migrant from Rhodesia).
Here is an excerpt from my memoir:
When I had tried – as often I had — to get help concerning my
father, you could almost see it in people’s eyes, the assumption that I was
simply getting what I had coming to me all along. The real world, didn’t
I know, was a lot tougher than the one I had no doubt been used to, in
which I had had servants waiting on me hand and foot. I was the
princess with the pea at the bottom of all her mattresses, who just
couldn’t accept that life in the real world was more difficult than I had
been brought up to know. Life, you know, was abusive, and often in the
extreme. People who lived in the real world just sucked it in. They accepted the
abuse as if they were enjoying a cup of coffee during an office break. It
was how the ultra-real world was necessarily supposed to function, so
they told me.
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And it should also be noted that I really didn’t understand the accusation in all its myriad of forms, “you are too sensitive”, until very recently, when I finally understood it was projective identification on the part of white Westerners, who were very sensitive about their colonial past.
Before that, I misunderstood the messages I kept receiving as if they signified that white Westerners really did enjoy abuse and find it very normal. So I tried to be tougher and tougher with them and more indifferent to pain myself. Oddly enough, they hated this — which, for some reason, really astonished me.
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I find this professor’s reactions sincere and perfectly reasonable. It’s your position which is all fine in theory but totally unhelpful for the girl.
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I had to get married extremely young without wanting to. And the advice I give is absolutely the best I can offer based on my profound and painful knowledge of this young woman’s predicament. Unlike for this professor, for me this isn’t theory. It’s my lived experience.
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At least in this post you come across as being more preoccupied with bashing “barbaric” social/cultural practices and protecting your notion of a liberal Utopia, more than the individual situation of the girl. I am not even sure something earth-shatteringly barbaric is going on here. The post mentions the girl’s having rejected several suitors who were seen as practical choices by her family. So clearly the girl is not being forced into something. There is not just enough data in the post to conclude either way, and there is no point in indulging in polemics based on unfounded generalizations. The only constructive point I see in this whole discussion is the question of the professor’s reaction to such a delicate situation.
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I also do not understand the American fetish for therapists and counsellors. I am wary of most of these witchdoctors (I know of one person’s shrink telling her to be wary of “fat people” because they have a negative effect on your personality or some such shit). I think teachers, friends, any random intelligent friendly person you feel comfortable talking to , can be a good counsellor – in this case it was the teacher, and I see nothing wrong in it.
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“I know of one person’s shrink telling her to be wary of “fat people” because they have a negative effect on your personality or some such shit”
-People in therapy hear exactly what they want to hear.
As a professor, I don’t want students presenting me with their personal dramas. I’m getting paid to teach them about Hispanic culture. I’m not getting paid to mother them. At work, I;m only interested in fulfilling the job duties specified in my contract of employment. That’s what I’m qualified to do. I’m not qualified to sort out personal dramas of strangers.
Besides, you have to be very careful with what you say to students because they might get into any kind of trouble and blame you for it. Here is a sample true story from my teaching past illustrating this point: https://clarissasblog.com/2010/12/02/a-funny-true-story-from-my-teaching-past/
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Yes and no. I’m from the olden days when professors and teachers did talk to students about things other than their specialty and I’m not as against this as people are now.
American fetish for therapists and counselors – part of the theory on this is, they can be objective.
I just told someone to go to counseling. His concrete problems can be solved with advice from friends and family, yes. His apparent commitment to unhappiness, only exhausts. I think there are two possibilities:
a) he’s not actually unhappy, he just wants to create a stir, in which case I, at least do not have time, so, counselor;
b) he really does have emotional problems I am not equipped to solve, so, professional help.
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Let’s wait for something like this to happen to you, when you are driven to approach strangers with talks about “just ending this”, and then we’ll ask you how barbaric you find the situation.
Anybody having any opinions or input on who a person should or should not marry is a barbarity of the first order. And when you have somebody who is so visibly disturbed by the situation that complete strangers are picking up on it, what can one say about parents who don’t see this naked suffering? That they are vile, nasty animals who hate this poor woman. I see no reason to mince words about it.
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This is cowardice masquerading as sensitivity. I would have told that woman that she should marry whoever she pleases, and to drop her parents like a hot rock. (Maybe not in those words, but close). The author isn’t trying to be sensitive to the woman’s needs – he’s passing the buck off for another group to handle. i.e. “Maybe those nice women in those women’s studies courses can help you.” If he wanted to do her a favor, instead of covering his ass, he would have given her the advice that he really wanted to.
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Hear, hear!
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It’s also philosophical idealism — the mistaken belief that if only a person has access to the right ideas, all their actual, material problems will disappear like magic.
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Yeah, I think you’ve nailed it.
I also thought the advice that she take a women’s studies class was kind of bizarre — she doesn’t need to write a dissertation on marriage customs, she needs her relatives to get off her back! — and the only reason I could think of for why he might suggest it was to show her that yes, you have rights and it’s OK for you to advocate for them. But that wouldn’t make sense, since she clearly already knows that there’s something wrong with her situation; she wouldn’t be coming into his office complaining about it if she didn’t know her rights were being violated!
Maybe he wanted her to take the class to arm herself rhetorically for the impending conflict with her parents?
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However, there’s the question of what to do in a practical sense. I read the article. What I find odd is missing class for this conversation. But it’s clear from the article that people had already told her more bald-face things and they hadn’t worked. She is going to have to figure it out for herself, more slowly. I think steering her to courses and social groups where she might meet people who had faced or were facing similar problems was a good idea – I’m not convinced whoever she got at the counseling center would be equipped to deal with this.
I had a similar student, lots of academic problems due to family expectations about major, marriage, etc. You could tell her and tell her, look, you have already said you don’t want to do what they want, and you don’t have to, you’re a TA and living on your own, come ahead and write your thesis, but she was in the grip of a whole lot of conflicting imperatives she had internalized and she had to work it out herself. Counseling etc. just seemed to exacerbate things, and just cooling her heels for a couple of years among the international student crowd was how she finally found a path.
On another note, I just never do know when to be super direct and when not to be. I have a friend I’d like to say something to now about a marriage and immigration situation, but I have reason to believe I should wait until the person asks me the question – then I’ll support them in doing what they need to do, they’ve got to decide for their life. If I say it now, I’ll get it off my chest, but not help them and possibly just wound them.
I find the role of receiver of advice quite delicate. My whole blog is essentially a rant against well meant, but also “off” advice that has been urged upon me – on the one hand – and on the other, against the experience of silence as the answer to specific questions I really had and have. I’ve received the “your parents don’t love you” speech a couple of times and while it may be true in some way, having to consider that, too, along with everything else was just an extra burden to carry – a weakening thing. And some of the most interesting insights I’ve gotten have been just from random people / chance remarks I’ve heard.
Actually, some good advice I’ve gotten was from Jennifer, above. This was because Jennifer really read through the problem, didn’t superimpose something else on it, and had thought through a related experience of her own that was germane. The reason I’d try to get this student into some student groups and so on would be so she might meet someone or some people who could do that for her.
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With friends, I have the following policy. If I see them do something I find to be stupid or wrong, I tell them. But I only do it once. After that, I never bring the topic up. If they keep talking about it, I nod and agree with everything. Only if they ask me on their own why I had a negative opinion about the situation do I reiterate my argument. I think it’s my responsibility to be honest about what I really think. And I always start with, “I’ll say this and I promise never to say it again if you don’t like what you hear.”
But I think it would be dishonest and underhanded of me not to say exactly what I think on this single opportunity.
I feel a lot of damage has been done to me by well-wishing quasi-friends who never told me the truth and instead preferred to ingratiate themselves with me by saying what I wanted to hear. Eventually, these relationships disintegrated because they were not built on anything genuine. Besides, you’ve got to admire the courage of anybody who dares tell me anything negative about me. 🙂
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I don’t get the prof missing the class either. What did the students do, then? Just sat there waiting for him in vain? That’s completely unprofessional.
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I don’t know. I suppose he lost presence of mind because she mentioned suicide. Maybe he went and canceled it. It’s still odd. The other odd thing is that she has in fact talked to various people about this already. They are both overwrought somehow. I realize she’s in pain but there’s something oddly overwrought about the whole story.
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I’ve learned that with people of contemporary Western origin, I really don’t want to hear what they have to say in any case. I once thought that I did, and in fact I tried to instigate situations where I would hear their views. I’d try to draw them out. Inevitably what I got was panic and projection. Very few people are mentally calm enough to think something through without resorting to facile moralizing. Many of my relationships disappeared when this crisis of facile moralizing and projection occurred. Those of African origin do tend to be more robust — but also less situated in philosophical idealism and more in the realm of practical affairs, which helps.
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Yes, well, I’ve already said most of my piece once, so that’s done. My speech was about 80% complete and I’m trying to figure out what the other 20% actually is, or whether it’s just me desiring to repeat points already made in other words. I want to reiterate that the problem person needs x and y, and that the only path to y is z. I’m going to practice that a few times as something to repeat like a broken record.
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I wonder why this student only confines in older men (a married boss and then the professor).
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Good point. The prof, too, seems to be one of those older male profs who seek attention of female students to the point where they become oblivious to everything else, even the class he needs to teach.
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I’m having a hard time seeing how this is a different circumstance from my friend being set up by her mom with the mom’s coworker’s son. Just about every date is made in the expectation of a future relationship, usually leading to.. marriage. Who it’s arranged by is pretty irrelevant, as long as both parties can decide whether to extend the relationship or end it.
I don’t think I can make a hard and fast line against advice. Women in abusive relationships tend not to notice all the niggling little red flags until it’s too late, so family and friends need to speak up. I think there’s a good deal to be said on the value of keeping one’s mouth shut otherwise. (For some reason, I’m reminded of my family’s reaction to my sister’s ex-boyfriend. Every time he came to dinner, you could see the words ‘he’s sweet, but..’ hanging over everyone’s head.He always reminded me of a Golden Retriever.)
Oh, and about counseling? It’s one of those good ideas that just doesn’t usually work out. Instituitional counselors (linked to colleges, etc.) have to report to someone, so it’s always a risk to confide in them. And they just tend to be kind of worthless anyway.
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“I’m having a hard time seeing how this is a different circumstance from my friend being set up by her mom with the mom’s coworker’s son.”
Sure it’s the same circumstance and just as reprehensible if your friend has no interest in the guy and your friend’s mom tried to coerce your friend into marrying the guy to the point that your friend expressed a sincere wish to kill herself. If your friend was totally cool with it and didn’t feel trapped by her mother’s efforts then that is completely different from what’s going on with this student.
“Just about every date is made in the expectation of a future relationship, usually leading to.. marriage.”
False.
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I didn’t see Helena’s comment at first, so I wrote the same thing. 🙂
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“I’m having a hard time seeing how this is a different circumstance from my friend being set up by her mom with the mom’s coworker’s son. ”
– Is your friend having suicidal ideation or imagining faking her death to avoid these dates her mother is setting up for her?
“Just about every date is made in the expectation of a future relationship, usually leading to.. marriage. ”
– As somebody who dated a lot (and I mean A REAL LOT), I have to say that this could not be further from the truth. 🙂
‘Oh, and about counseling? It’s one of those good ideas that just doesn’t usually work out. Instituitional counselors (linked to colleges, etc.) have to report to someone, so it’s always a risk to confide in them. And they just tend to be kind of worthless anyway.”
-I know but they are still better equipped to deal than a professor.
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If I try to think back to my own situation, which was a very long time ago, the one element I was always craving — but never actually got — was simple moral support. The one form of academic training that just about undid me in terms of effectively combating any form of abuse was philosophical idealism, which was taught very strongly as a form of moral solipsism that we were all obliged to embrace in order to be properly intellectually trained and psychologically well-adjusted. The academically espoused form of moral solipsism, taught as postmodernism, really confused me more than anything else could have done. It made out that everything came down to various differentials in terms of “perceptions”, such that a negative situation ought to be resolved either by adjusting one’s own perceptions or by persuading the offending party to adjust theirs. Nothing has viciously assaulted my psyche more than this ideology of postmodernism, which is constantly reinforced by academics not matter how hard you fight back against it. Indeed, the more you fight it on intellectual and ideological terms, the more the postmodernist ideologues will tend to dissolve your arguments so that they appear to be mere psychology postures, with no ability to point beyond themselves to any actually existing reality. I can’t emphasize enough how hostile I am to this form of reasoning, with its default position that we are all absolutely free and therefore any unwanted behaviour is either subconsciously desired or a product of fantasy and “all in the mind”.
My contempt for this vapid psychologising knows no bounds.
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So what would be the solution you’d propose for this woman?
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Moral support. Especially if it has content, like a safe place to stay.
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A male professor can’t offer a female student a place to stay. He’d get fired in two minutes.
And what does moral support mean specifically in this case?
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Look, I don’t have many answers to contemporary society and the problems it has created, which is why I have mostly dropped out of it. It seems to me that the reason why most people do not act more effectively is because there are all sorts of rules -written and unwritten- that would prevent this. The old, colonial mentality was different. For instance, when my writer marechera was expelled from university for trying to incite a rebellion against the colonial regime, two white students hid him at their home.
We’ve seemingly moved on from this era of practical solutions,to the point that right now no solutions to really desperate problems seem viable – except for those that might make the situation even worse.
So, I have no idea. None at all. My personal solution is to associate with pragmatic people and let others know that this is how I prefer to function. I’m keen to get back to Africa, where most people think this way.
So, I don’t know. I certainly would tell the woman that I thought her situtation was potentially very dangerous and that she needed to deal with it as if it were real.
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I think I should start a new thread on moral support because it’s a very interesting issue to me. Thanks for the inspiration!
“We’ve seemingly moved on from this era of practical solutions,to the point that right now no solutions to really desperate problems seem viable – except for those that might make the situation even worse.”
-I agree with this.
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