For my entire life, the importance of education was stressed to me. It was a top priority in my household. When I got to college, my mother didn't force any major or express her disapproval for my unconventional major. If you're wondering, anything other than doctor, lawyer or teacher is considered unconventional in an Arab household. She didn't understand what majoring in Communications entailed but she never tried to steer me away from it. My mother always told me that she refused to force her children into any career fields because she knew that no matter how much money we would accumulate in those fields, nothing would satisfy us more than our own personal happiness. Whatever I wanted to study, I did. What mattered most to my mother was that I was being educated. Based on all of this, it's safe to say that due to my up bringing I didn't see education as a privilege, I saw it as a necessity. Which is why it baffled me this week when I met a freshman in my philosophy class that had to battle her parents to be able to attend college.
It was the first day of class and I casually struck up a conversation with the girl next to me. I asked the usual questions to create small talk. "What year are you in? What's your major?" Her answer shocked me. She told me she doesn't have a major yet and "It wouldn't matter, because my parents don't want me here anyway." She told me her high school persuaded her parents into allowing their daughters to apply to and attend college. I sensed what she was hinting at. Her parents disapproved of her attending college, being as though women being educated is not a norm for them. It really shocked me. It wasn't new hearing these stories, but in America I thought those values were a thing in the past. Now more than ever girls of all cultural backgrounds are attending colleges and flooding professional fields. I sat silently while my brain went into overload coming up with a game plan to get her to stay in college. I offered her majors that would make her parents enthusiastic, ways to lie to them and talking points to get them on board. I couldn't believe her parents set up roadblocks to hinder their daughter's education.
To say it made me enraged would be an understatement. It will never make sense to me why parents would go out of their way to ban their daughters from learning. Especially those who immigrated here and started a family. At the core of every immigration story is the desire for a better life for you and your family. It's the aspiration towards better opportunities at your children's fingertips. So it makes no sense to me why a family would place stop signs in front of their daughter's future. What are they so afraid of? Why is the world so afraid of educating women? Why is a woman with an education such a feared outcome? What is so alluring of a woman crippled by ignorance? Why do some parents teach their daughters that education is not a necessity? It's disgraceful to me that some girls have to fight their way towards higher learning. But what's more deplorable is that they're not fighting a government system, they're battling their parents. Let's end this idea that we teach our daughters that all that matters is her purity rather than her education. Let's end this idea that we allow our sons to go as far and high as he wants while holding our daughter back until marriage.
To whom this may concern,
In case you didn't know already, your daughter's knowledge is just as valuable as your son's.
