{"id":4694,"date":"2026-05-26T05:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/?p=4694"},"modified":"2026-05-26T05:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:08:10","slug":"a-woman-is-no-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/26\/a-woman-is-no-man\/","title":{"rendered":"A Woman Is No Man"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Red Bird Cottage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I chose this image for this book because it is a photo of a home. Specifically, my home. A place I spend a great deal of time… What it is not, is an image of an apartment in NYC, which is where this story is mainly set. But a home is a home. This is as close as I could get to what this book was about. On a cultural level, it is probably very wrong. As this was a tale of Palestinian immigrants and my house is a colonial farmhouse. But these two structures the one from the book and colonial homes back in colonial times are or were more alike than you would initially think… <\/p>\n

Women’s history in every culture is full of abuse, and something akin to enslavement. Once upon a time in early America, women could not vote. Could not have bank accounts. Our husbands could take our children from us. We were largely kept in the home doing the job machines do today. This work could be dangerous. Ask the first wife of the author Longfellow. Oh wait, you can’t. Cooking literally killed her. She burned to death. She wasn’t unlike most women of her time and of her culture. I was 13 when marital rape was criminalized in this country. 1993. Yeh, I just threw up in disgust in my mouth a little when I realized how recently that happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This book, was interesting on many levels and quite honestly I could write about it all night. Etaf Mur, or I am sorry…. I can’t refer to her by this name. Fate Change, wrote a beautiful tale that was often difficult to read. Just to back up a bit… I call her Fate Change, or Change Fate, because Etaf, is Fate spelled backwards. I am dyslexic so that struck me right away. My brain automatically turns letters around. Mur, took me a moment to understand. Because it too appears to be backwards. Rum. Rum, in Hebrew, is the word for Change. Since she is writing things backwards, I choose to put the last name first and the first name last which gives us Change Fate. It also establishes and speaks to the depth of her feeling for and immersion in the subject matter she is writing about. It was an experience to see through eyes we rarely look through. Partly, because it is hard, and partly because the door is closed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The book begins discussing how you have never read a story like this before… This I take some issue with. It certainly isn’t a story commonly told, but in the current day I don’t feel it is as unheard of as it is presented as. That said, this is a stupid bone to pick. There are others, better ones. Why did you have to make me love these characters so much only to do that to one of them? Why did you have to make me at times as angry at one or more of the women as I was at their husbands??? While at the same time I understand like all of us they were products of their culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, Palestine, is a nation enduring a brutal and violent ethnic cleansing. The early echoes of which have been happening for so very many decades now. This is where someone calls me antisemitic. Nothing is further from the truth. I have Jewish friends I love. I love that we have a nation of Israel. But I do wish it could play more nicely with it’s neighbors and be more respectful of them. I would also hope, that such action would inspire similar behavior from it’s neighbors in response. But I am here to write about a book not about a war, or middle eastern politics. I don’t have the background to discuss the history here too significantly. But the fact is, this issue, has impacted generations of Palestinians and is therefore relevant to the experience of some of the characters of the book. Which is why I bring it up. This world needs both Israel and Palestine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The story pretty much begins in Palestine. A young woman, a daughter to a mother who is beaten down and regularly beaten up, is married off to a man significantly older than she is. She is in my view still a child. (If you ask me, marriage should be internationally outlawed till both parties are at least 25. But, right, I don’t get to make the rules.) He is visiting Palestine searching for a bride with his parents. The plan, is to marry in Palestine, then bring the new barely legal wife to NYC, to live with them in their over crowded apartment in the basement. So that is what happens. Isra, is a dutiful wife raised to be her mother in law’s servant, her husband’s property, and mother to the children she will soon have in far too rapid succession. She is literate, but beyond that seems to only know how to cook and clean. She is entirely unprepared for the expectations within a marriage. Especially the ones that lead to children. Reading about what she goes through, was horrifying and terrible. It was deeply upsetting. She expects to be beaten by her husband. It is not a secret that he beats her in this over crowded apartment she can not leave. She has baby after baby…. One of\u00a0 her husband’s brothers marries and her sister in law moves in… Which adds some flavor to the story. The mother in law, doesn’t really take care of her or act with any consideration at all. No one does. Until, her husband’s sister starts bringing her home books. They build a relationship even as the mother in law, begins setting up meetings with suitors for her daughter Sarah. Sarah, goes to public school. She wants a different life. One with university education. A job, autonomy. Eventually she takes off. Which causes much shame that then must be hidden. In fact shame is a major theme throughout. Shame for having daughters rather than sons, shame over every ridiculous thing you can imagine…. Only, the ones who should be ashamed never seem to be of their own behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The book begins with a collection of daughters of Isra, living with their grandparents. The eldest, is being set up on dates with potential suitors, her marriage is being arranged. She is still in high school and desperately wants to go to university. Her name is Deya. One day, a woman leaves a letter for her, asking her to get in touch…. This letter opens up a whole can of worms. In which major family secrets are uncovered and explored. Hidden truths come out. People must face who culture has turned them into, and a young girl, struggles to change her fate. I don’t want to say more about this than that as I really don’t want to spoil the book.<\/p>\n

Much of this was hard to read. At different points I found myself pissed off at literally just about every single member of this family. I got mad at the mother in law, over her ridiculous expectations regarding the husband of Isra, her son Adam who worked like 3 jobs to live in a crappy basement, never seeing his wife and kids, all so his brother could get the education he would have liked to get himself. I felt rage at all the men in this story who beat the women tied to them as pieces of property. I felt rage at the women at times, for knowing this was wrong on some level but being ok to raise their own daughters for the same purpose of marriage and life as an abused piece of property. I felt rage at a culture that does not seem to value it’s women anywhere beyond the confines of it’s holy text book. Islam, has the potential to be such a tradition of peace and compassion, it sux when so called followers twist it into a culture of beating women. Let me be clear, not all muslims do the latter. A great many do not. I hope the majority. But the cultural acceptance of women as silent pieces of property is a difficult thing to experience in this book. Perhaps in part because I so value having a voice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story followed the lives of several generations moving from Palestine to NYC. It discussed how even once here, they aren’t really here. They are prisoners in their homes. Out of sight. Where you and I never see them until a news article appears about some weird honor killing of some kind in which a husband murders his wife. The pressure they assume and live under. Not just the women but to some extent the men too, is alarming… This book made me ask, how can I be an ally for women who need one. I still have not found an answer. But like Change Fate, who wouldn’t stop till she got this story down on paper, I too will not stop looking for ways to be of help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weather stories like this have been told only once or many times…. It doesn’t matter. What matters, is how receptive we are to women especially in dangerous home situations. Especially when they are women with no friends or contacts outside the home to turn to. How do we create safe spaces that husbands and cultures like theirs will permit them to attend, so that they might find and make contacts that would help them in an emergency? This, is what I hope Change Fate, writes next. A guide book on how to create exactly that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over all, the book club enjoyed this book… Well, enjoyed may be the wrong word. It was well written and the culture was part of the writing style. As was the inner life of these amazing strong female characters just trying to survive in a world trying to squash them. I would absolutely recommend this book to any woman and every woman. Especially right now as women’s rights are under attack. When we are stripped completely of our rights, our voice comes next. Once that is gone, what are we? Just objects to be abused at the whims of men who are pissed off their penises are not larger. This book is where the road we are on right now leads to. The thing is, once we get there and it is permitted to perpetuate, it’s game over.<\/p>\n

I value tradition. I choose to be a stay home wife. I spend my days working in my garden in the summer and greenhouse in the winter. We eat the products of my labor. I milk goats, bottle feed the baby kids, spin wool on a spinning wheel. I love the life I have chosen. But one of the reasons why, is because I have a partner not a possessor. Not an owner. The day that were to change, would be the day my boot would send him flying right out of our house. We both contribute. He goes to work, and I contribute by saving us money. Making some of our clothing, making certain expenses non existent or very minor. We attack our economic situation from both sides of the issue. That is the format we both choose our partnership to take. If I wanted to go to work, my spouse would not have any objections. I have my own social life and friends. We also have mutual friends. He doesn’t make rules for me. He is my partner. We discuss things and make compromises and sometimes we each take hits in relation to what we want, to give the other what they need. Sometimes we argue and fight. Not often, but when we do, no one gets hit. We eventually storm off to our corners and sulk. Sometimes for hours other times for days. Pretty sure once we did it for the better part of a year…. I love that women work. If I had children I would want them to see women working. I would want them to see women working as care givers and creators at home too. I would want them to know there is no wrong path to follow in life as a woman. They can be and do anything they choose.\u00a0<\/p>\n

it all comes down to choice doesn’t it? Isra, never had one. Sarah, made hers… The mother in law too chose to make the best of a bad life. The sister in law chose to ignore the demands she didn’t care for. The son and husband chose to be dutiful till it destroyed him. Staying with an abuser too is a choice. But leaving one is the most dangerous period of time in the relationship. People can be weak. Cultures, strong cultures, choose too. They choose to change when necessary for the welfare of the weakest in their society. Change begins with speaking hard truths. Change Fate, by writing this book, has begun to change her culture. I can only imagine that it was terrifying for her to publish this outstanding book. Thank you Change Fate, for your bravery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you have the time, give this one a read.\u00a0
\nThank you for reading\u00a0
\nAmanda Of Wildflower Farm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I chose this image for this book because it is a photo of a home. Specifically, my home. A place I spend a great deal of time… What it is not, is an image of an apartment in NYC, which is where this story is mainly set. But a home is a home. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4695,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1020],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-4694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bookclub","tag-bookclub"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4696,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions\/4696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildflower-farm.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}