What amazing readings. There are many questions that specifically Hasan-Rokem's and Sa'ar's pieces bring to light, such as 1. why land is constantly anthropomorphized (or rather feminomorphized, if you'll allow me to totally make up a word), 2. how and why that is problematic for people who live on that land and for the gender to which the land is compared, and 3. how that precedent/trend can be crushed (because really, it needs to be).
1. Land is physical, it is fruitful, it is beautiful, it can be claimed. It represents the purposes that men have, throughout history, assigned for women to fulfill, and in this sense it is easy to see how land has been gendered female and how it has been controlled and bought and sold and manipulated and coveted much like women often are.
2. This is clearly a problem, but it is important that we examine exactly why this is a problem. The readings help shine a light on the numerous issues involved in gendering inanimate objects such as land. The concept that since land is where people are born, is where things grow, is beautiful, and therefore is like a woman comes from the mindset that women have an inherent duty or responsibility to produce, to be used for production, to be beautiful, to obey and succumb. This mindset is clearly damaging to women, placing them in a binder (sorry, couldn't help myself) of limited options for ways that they can live their lives or contribute to society. For the people who live on this land, this mindset is damaging because it implies that there is a correct owner of the land and does not allow for co-ownership or collective ownership or--heaven forbid--no ownership at all. This has created, as we see with Jerusalem, violence between groups that see themselves as being the rightful owners and marginalization of less powerful groups living on that land.
3. If only the soil itself could rise up and declare its independence from the fundamentalist sentimentality and arbitrary control that people place upon it. "I'm land! Just live on me and stop fighting!" Of course it's not that simple. I really am not entirely sure how this problem can be addressed. The patriarchy is alive and well everywhere we look--can standing up to injustices we experience as women (and witness or perpetuate, as men or in some cases women) help dislodge land from the area of our brains that is reserved for things that our "mine and mine alone and no one else's"?
My questions for everyone are:
1. How can the anthropomorphizing of land be stopped, especially in respect to the female gender being assigned to it and therefore justifying its control and possession by people in power?
2. Whatever the answer is to that question, can it work in Jewish and Muslim societies, both of which have different ways of marginalizing women and trying to be the sole owners of special parts of physical land?
While I, unfortunately, have no answers to your questions, I find them insightful and agree with your observations. I have always found it strange that inanimate objects-- vehicles, places, possessions-- are assigned a gender, and have wondered why they are female. What you said about men desiring similar things from both human women and objects they possess sheds a lot of light on this question.
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