Arabs and Working Women

Women were and will always be the other half of the society that we all live in. different societies have different ways of treating women, and most of the time it is not equal. In the Middle East it is a normal thing to see men working and women staying home with the kids. The notion of mothers should stay home and raise their kids to be the “best” was stated by many families. While having a normal conversation with a friend of mine, I pulled out a question “Do you think women should go out and work or stay home and raise the kids?” That was her response:

Although this answer makes since to many of us, women hate to stay at home. They feel that their life is surrounded by kids, cleaning, washing and all the boring home duties. Whereas the man goes out, work, travel and have a business lunch. Women want to take a break from the home duties and go out to explore what this world has to offer for them. If the women is out working who is going to take care of the kids? The maid? Why would someone leave her/his kid with someone who is only supposed to do is taking care of the house? Well the answer would be that women want to explore the life outside the house, and that is why some parents who both work keep their kids in a nursery school if the kids were young.

In sociology, the breadwinner system means that the man goes out to work and the wife stays home with the kids. This been the system for Arabs for a long time, and it will, from my perspective, continue for the next few decades. The man will always be the man of the house. The breadwinner system varies from a social class to another. For example, women from the high middle class are not supposed to work because they have enough money that the man gets. On the other hand, women from the working class or the low middle class might not have enough money to support the family. Therefore, the women also work to support their husbands to provide the best support for their kids.

As an Arab, I think women should be given the chance to go outside and work, but work should not conflict with their other duties to their husbands and kids.

Sealine Desert in Qatar

Over the past few weeks, I frequently visited Sealine, the desert area outside Doha, and spent time at my friend’s camp. This active blog will attempt to highlight the cultural norms, values, lifestyle, and activities of interest of those in Sealine.  

Although it is located just 50-60km from Doha (with the last 5-10km being on sandy roads), the lifestyle of those that frequently camp there is noticeably different from those living in the big city. Life is very simple, and sometimes all you need to cheer you up is a cup of tea coupled with a random say-whatever’s-on-your-mind conversation with a group of friends seated around a warm fire that prevents the winter’s icy breeze from getting through your bones.Some of the activities people perform for entertainment purposes include the extremely popular cards game known as Barazeleyya (Brazilian), barbequing, showing off by driving up over steep sand dunes with your SUV, and then there's the occasional weirdo that drives on top of the sand dunes to willingly get his car stuck in the soft sand, just so he can learn how to get it out of there. 

Almost every time I’m there, someone makes us one of those killer Arab dishes, such as Chicken Machboos (Rice served with chicken) or Prawn Biryani (Rice with prawns). Add to that the fact that on those days it was about 15 degrees Celsius (which is equivalent to -10 C for people not living in scorching deserts), and you can’t help but eat like there’s tomorrow. It’s somewhat unexpected of a male Qatari to be able to produce such a delicious and moderately difficult-to-make meal. This is because in our culture, women hold the “traditional” family role as homemakers, as they are expected to be able to cook well, at least up until the last century.  However, I believe that being able to make such a meal can really come in handy sometimes, especially when you are in the desert with twenty starving young men. Maybe that is part of the reason why I suddenly took a lot of interest into being able to replicate such a fine meal that can simultaneously feed a large group of people.

Whenever I visit, there are usually at least about fifteen young men, most of whom I barely know on a personal level. This barrier between us requires social interaction on our behalf, resulting in the development and adaptation of our identities for "strategic purposes". 

After having been to Sealine several times, I haven’t seen a single Qatari female camp present in Sealine, or any female camp for that matter. This speaks to the gender issue in Qatar and the Gulf Area in general, where there are only about a thousand rules women are expected to abide by. I am not saying I’m against these social norms, I am simply acknowledging their existence in our society.

NUQ vs Hollywood

This week I am going to focus on how Northwestern University in Qatar is a perfect example of an initiative that is trying to break down the stereotype that Hollywood has been portraying about Arabs being either villains, terrorists, or maidens. According to “Guilty, Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11 by Jack G. Shaheen. Northwestern University is one of the strongest universities in America, known for it’s strong journalism, and communications programs. Qatar Foundation deciding to partner with Northwestern University and have a branch campus is a rotted solution to the negative portrayal of Arabs being terrorist. Northwestern University, Qatar is now teaching young minds from all over the Arab world how to send their message across, to the media, and journalism world. According to a recent interview with Everette Dennis, CEO & Dean of Northwestern University, Qatar he said “One student’s film, “A Falcon, a Revolution,” used the symbol of the falcon in Arab culture to illustrate and understand what was happening with the Arab Spring” when he was asked over what made him proud of NUQ students. This is a great example of how NUQ students are now showcasing in their own perspectives to speak up and express their opinions or even other people’s opinion in the Qatari, or even Arab Society.  While Hollywood can represent the Arab world negatively in most of it’s films, Qatar is starting it’s own fight against Hollywood, by producing it’s own future filmmakers, and maybe “Inshallah” the next Hollywood.

Bombers or Billionaires?

When I lived in Canada I witnessed many different kinds of stereotyping. It seems like after 9/11 there was an increase in negative sanctions towards people of darker skin tones. Despite the actual ethnicity of the person, as long as you had a brown complexion you were targeted.

In our last Sociology class we discussed how the American film industry has projected these extreme images of people who live in the Middle East in order to escalate a culture of fear. Although there were always distorted images of Arabs in American movies since the late 20th century, the impact of these images became even more profound on audiences after 9/11.

Although Canada was not affected by 9/11, airports worldwide tightened security measures as a result of the tragic event. In general, elementary and high school kids are mean. But somehow the incident of 9/11 justified their meanness. In the narrow minds of these kids, everyone of a brown skin tone was Pakistani. And they would bully these poor kids, telling them to go back to where they came from, and even asking them if they were related to the Taliban. North American children were highly susceptible to moral panic. Moral panic makes exaggerated media images and messages so much more believable.


Arabs in the film industry are normally portrayed as “bombers, belly dancers and billionaires,” the three B syndrome. Prior to the 9/11 attacks, these images were extremely dominant. Living in Qatar for the past five years only showed one trait to be quite accurate: billionaires. Although there is more to the Arab culture than money, it is quite a distinguished characteristic. If Americans showed other aspects of the Arab culture in their movies, like their food, how they love shisha and how they are actually quite normal, it would result in a major loss to the film industry and not support the American justification for intervening in the Middle East.




The movie The Kingdom, released in 2007, is about a terrorist attack on a U.S. compound in Saudi Arabia and how American special agents go in and investigate. This movie depicts how Islamists are extremists and fanatics and justifies American resolve to be in the Middle East: Arabs are evil, and Americans are heroes. Arabs can be classified as folk devils, particularly for Americans. A folk devil is a term that’s applied to outsiders portrayed as responsible for creating social problems.



The film industry usually reflects American foreign policy. During the Cold War with Russia, many films depicted communists as evil and invoked a sense of fear, again contributing to this culture of fear. However after the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. changed its foreign policy to target the Middle East and coincidentally films reflected this change.