Head + Scarf * Hand + Phone
To the chagrin of humanists, theocracies and patriarchal societies in too
many parts of the world enforce sexual oppression. As we’ve all learned
in the last 20 years, especially with the phenomenal results of
microfinancing to women, the female half of the population is generally
critical to raising the entire cultural and economic hopes of a country. This
is largely because of their focus on the children and their insistence on
food, education, and health before personal desires. So what happens
when the government doesn’t change but the options open to oppressed
women do?
Enter the cell phone; the hand sized device facilitating private and
instantaneous exchange of information and ideas. A more potent cancer to
the logistics of oppression is difficult to imagine.
Because I was so involved myself with the use of technology in new areas
of communication, as an animator in Hollywood, I often tried to describe
the contradiction and tension inherent in the rapid changes in technology
and the many wars being fought, especially in the Islamic world, for control
of minds. But it wasn’t until I arrived in Indonesia a year ago to teach
English that I inadvertently happened upon the “picture worth a thousand
words:” Young women swaddled in hijab with their necks bent over cell
phones and their minds all over the world.
Head + Scarf * Hand + Phone = Hope