Segregation or integration

After attending a female only festival just a few days ago, I have noticed how much of what we do or say is socialized. We never notice how we categories ourselves into gender groups, how we categorise ourselves in order of race or ethnicity. No. This blog post is not about racial profiling. It’s the differences between genders. People always speak of gender equality; the difference between men and women, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. In Qatar, there’s a different story. Men are more likely to be sanctioned for crossing the gender line than women. Men are not allowed in areas where women gather and once the line is crossed in this situation, women can be come ruthless to the offender.

While at the Islamic festival, many women had not had their regular Muslim cover-up on due to a huge gathering of women in the area and it being okay for a woman to show her hair to another woman in Islam. When a male technician had entered the hall to fix a problem with the speakers, almost all the women covered up. As he left, all those bright colour dresses and fancy hairstyles were revealed again. The festival went on for a while being completely harmonious and very entertaining, when suddenly, a male driver entered the hall. Screams and panic shook the hall from the women. The man at this point freaked out and ran out of the hall. Seeing the faces of the women in charge of the event, I knew something interesting was about to go down. I followed the women as they followed the newly disturbed driver outside the hall. This is where the ruthless part came about happening. The women yelled at the driver in Arabic all at once and the driver looked completely puzzled.

The constant sanctioning and the importance of respecting the gender boundary in Doha made me realize how everything in our life is socialized. Studying sociology is really an eye-opener to much of what is going on in life that is right under our nose, but we never realize it.