Learning...

My favorite aspect of exploring social justice across cultures was learning about things in very different ways from how I might have previously thought about a topic. For example, as we discussed sexual and gender roles a very different community was brought to my attention. In Luoshui village, there are no traditional marriages. In the walking marriages present in this community, women are free to choose every night what/if any man sleeps in her bedroom that night. If a woman gets pregnant and has a child, then child is raised by her and her family, but not in any way by the dad. Before taking this class I most likely would just be like “that’s weird”, not attempting to look into the cultural differences between my culture and that culture.  But now I am more interested in learning about what the other culture values and why they may have different traditions such as a walking marriage. After seeing the video on the walking marriages my eyes were opened to a culture that that is drastically different from my own. I realized that I can’t just walk around judging other people, who may be from another culture. I need to learn about the other culture and try to understand, but no matter what I need to allow the other people to practice their culture in peace.