23/02/09

Hi,

Last Saturday, the day after I went to the markets with Papa, a group of people from MSID, including myself went to an english club meeting at the local university.  It is called L’Univerisite Cheikh Anta Diop, and has 60,000 students in a university that was built for around 15,000 students.  We visited one of the dorm rooms, and it had one bed, and a mattress on the floor, as well as a tiny bathroom with a shower.  The Senegalese students told us that it would have been a single originally, but now there are four people living there.  Seeing how much space they had made the housing shortage at Penn State look very minor. 

The meeting of the english club was actually a debate on the topic of marriage.  After a socializing period, a panel of students presented arguments for and against marriage.  The primary pro-marriage argument was that marriage is a holy institution created by God, and God directs that people get married.  The con-marriage panel was two young women who argued that marriage makes women at best like maids, and if you’re not lucky like slaves.  For them, marriage is viewed as an obstacle to having a career, traveling, and generally being able to make choices about how they would like to spend their lives.  

It was interesting to me that these women viewed avoiding marriage as the means by which they would be able to achieve their goals.  It seemed to be commonly accepted that it is a wife’s responsibility to take care of all of the housework, children, and to a large extent her husband.  No one (except a few of our group who spoke) proposed a modification to the gender roles, but rather it was generally accepted that women have to choose between getting married and being able to direct their own lives and have fulfilling careers.  While there are some married women who work, it seems that it is out of economic necessity, and that the wife staying home with the children is the optimal state.

While there were some people, including a few men, who were “against” marriage, a large majority of the room was “for” marriage.  Several women spoke in favor of marriage, and one one woman in particular stuck out to me, because she said that she was for marriage because God desires that women have children, and to have children one has to get married first.  I’m not familiar enough with the Koran to know whether it directly instructs people to get married and have children or not, but whether it’s in the Koran or not, marriage as a religious practice is a value commonly and strongly felt by the Senegalese.  Even amongst the young, well educated Senegalese we we talking with, religion seemed to be the most common motivator for marriage, along with the general opinion that one cannot be happy without being married.  

In addition to the feminist stance, one other main opinion against marriage seemed to be that too many women are materialistic, and get married for economic reasons, so some of the men there didn’t want to get married and then have their wife leave them for a richer man.  This was rebutted, or generalized somewhat by the argument that there are many motivations for marriage, other than love, for both men and women, and these often create problems.  Some people felt that if a couple married for love that the husband wouldn’t want to mistreat or overwork his wife, so this wouldn’t be a problem.  In general, many people felt that too many people get married for reasons other than love, and this was not good for the future success of the couple.

For me, this debate was very interesting, since I think a debate on marriage in the US would have gone very differently.  The women around me were asking we which side I was on, and I said I was for marriage, but I disagreed with much of what was being said on “my” side.  While I don’t consider myself a feminist, many of the arguments were obviously sexist, and it irritated me that they were so widely accepted, even by the females. Gender roles are very different here in Senegal, and I’m not here to crusade for feminism, but I was surprised to hear such a majority of university students express these opinions.  From the arguments presented I would probably should have said I was against marriage, because really I’m “for” marriage but not for any of the reasons they presented.

While I was interested in the content of the debate, it was mainly set up in this format to give the students a chance to practice English.  There were probably over a hundred people there, and I was impressed to see such high participation in a club meeting on a Saturday afternoon.  I think the Senegalese have much more incentive to study English than US students have to study any language, and that is why so many students come to practice, and so many have achieved such a high proficiency.  Everyone who spoke was understandable, and many students were very good with only a few mistakes, and this debate was only for the freshman and sophomores, so these were not the upper level English students.

After the debate we toured the university some (this is when we went into a dorm), and talked with some of the students more.  Apparently the English club hold a forum like this every other Saturday, so I hope to go back since it was an interesting insight into Senegalese culture, as well as a chance to meet more Senegalese students.  

Love,

Mel