On the Games People Play (and Related Subjects)

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Categorized Under: Relationships
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savvypic11 150x150  On the Games People Play (and Related Subjects)

Troy Headrick
The American University in Cairo
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
contact@savvy-women-magazine.com






Watching Fredricka Whitfield’s interview with Hephzibah Anderson, author of the memoir Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without Sex, got me thinking about sex, one of my favorite Savvy blog topics. I say “favorite” because the subject always seems to open up and out, to expand. Any discussion that begins with sex (and/or the psychology of sex and/or the sociology of sex) as its focal point can end up leading me in half a dozen (or more) different directions.

Ms. Anderson mentions the pressure that all single people are under to be sexually active. Yes, it’s a sexual world we live in, and to feel a part of that world we have to play the game. Oops! Did I actually use the word “game” when referring to sex? I assure you it wasn’t my intention to do so. The word just popped out of my mouth (or was on the tips of my fingers, in this case). I guess I’ve just proved Freud right. Sometimes we do “slip.”

When I was growing up, I assumed (because I always heard) that males and females play the game of sex differently, according to different rules, and with the purpose of achieving different aims. Boys, as the lore of life went, have sex because they’re just too “animalistic” to help themselves. It’s part of their nature to want to “breed” and to spread their “seed” far and wide. Girls, on the other hand, have sex to achieve intimacy. They “give it” to their boyfriends (even Fredricka Whitfield uses the phrase “give it away”) as a way of expressing their deep, emotional attachment to them.

I’m wondering now, as I write this, if these differences really are true, or if they’re just silly notions propagated by Hollywood. Popular media, it seems, needs stark contrasts as a way of creating and perpetuating dramatic tension. You can even see this in mainstream televised news. International conflicts are always portrayed as contests between “good guys” and “bad guys.” Of course, conflict is exciting. It sells. It keeps people tuned in. And you can only have it when there is a protagonist and an antagonist. But when this sort of black-or-white, “TV thinking” begins to affect our everyday thinking, we can develop overly simplistic views on lots of different subjects.

(We can start believing that there are male reasons for having sex and female reasons for having sex and that these are diametrically opposed.)

Wow! I had no idea I was going to end up writing about popular media and thinking and conflict when I began this blog. Like I said, sex, well, it just seems to get me excited (no pun intended).

Gray All the Way

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Categorized Under: Relationships, Self Help
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savvypic11 150x150 Gray All the Way

Troy Headrick
The American University in Cairo
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
contact@savvy-women-magazine.com






Now that my classes at the university have ended for the year, I’m looking forward to summer vacation. In a little more than two weeks I’ll be flying to America to see my family, and on the way there, I’ll do a stopover stay for a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland. I’ll blog that trip in the weeks ahead, so stay tuned.

Reading is one of the things I enjoy doing during the summertime when I’m back home. Just recently, when looking for reading material to carry me through the next three months, I discovered Jean Kwok, a Chinese-American writer who emigrated from Hong Kong when she was very young and now lives in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband and two children. Kwok’s first book, Girl in Translation, a novel that is based quite extensively upon early experiences she had in the Big Apple melting pot, was recently published and seems to be getting pretty good reviews.

Kwok can be seen talking specifically about her novel here. I’ve included a CNN interview in which she focuses less on the book and more on her upbringing and the interesting concept of “identity.”

I feel that I have a lot in common with Kwok. Of course, we both write, but I’m thinking mostly about the fact that the two of us have spent significant chunks of time living outside the countries where we were born. Such people, with a foot in two different worlds, are very interesting, I think.

Each year, as I get ready to jet back to Texas, I always spend some time thinking about who I am, where I’ve come from, and how I’ve changed now that I’ve become so international. The conclusion that I always come to, at the end of all that thinking, is that I’m now the intriguing Mr. Gray Kwok refers to in her interview.

We’re All Sisters (and Brothers)

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Categorized Under: Relationships, Women's Issues
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savvypic11 150x150  Were All Sisters (and Brothers)

Troy Headrick
The American University in Cairo
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
contact@savvy-women-magazine.com







After watching this CNN video on Gamma Gamma Chi, America’s first “Islamic-based” sorority, I had a look at the group’s website,  read about the organization’s history, and learned that it was founded, in 2005, by Dr. Althia F. Ali and Imani Canty. This “mother-daughter team” started the honor society as a way to “help improve the image of Muslim women and Islam in general.” Since its inception, the group has flowered and now has chapters located in several towns and cities throughout the United States.

I really enjoyed listening to Dr. Ali talk about Gamma Gamma Chi’s mission in the CNN piece. She came across as a great spokeswoman, especially as she discussed the ways the sorority could help “defy stereotypes” and then argued that this mission was needed because so few Americans have the opportunity to meet Muslims and interact with them. Toward the end of the video, Ali made it clear that the sorors were hoping to be as inclusive a group as possible and would welcome non-Muslims to either join the sorority or partner with it as it conducted various community-service projects.

I was drawn to this video because I’m an American who currently lives in Egypt and has spent most of the last twelve years living in the Middle East–firstly, in the United Arab Emirates and then later, in Turkey, before moving to Cairo. One of the reasons I continue to reside in this part of the world is related to something that Ali said. She pointed out that Muslim women should engage with non-Muslims and not shut themselves off. Actually, her point is an extremely important one. All of us should actively seek to meet as many different kinds of people as possible.

It’s only through interacting with others who are “different” that we learn and become (hopefully) tolerant of diversity. I have understood this ever since I joined the Peace Corps and was sent to live among Eastern Europeans. That experience helped me realize that I have a duty (to myself and to others) to learn as much as I can about the world and those who inhabit it, especially about those who live in places that are so often misunderstood by so many Americans. After educating myself about other places, peoples, and cultures, I can then do my part to educate those who have not had the opportunity to live in as many different countries as I have.

I hope I don’t sound too preachy here. That’s the last thing I want to sound like. I just very strongly believe that borders and boundaries (of all types) separate people, so we should do what we can to tear those walls down.