Gender and the Night Scene in Qatar

Public partying in Qatar is a subculture of its own. Partying for locals of Doha is only available for males, and even at that it’s very hushed. What I mean by public partying is, for example, going to a concert and/or going to a club. What I mean by subculture is a group of people who form their own culture within the larger culture.

In Doha, males form their own culture for partying by excluding the females. For this post, I did a case study based on Sean Paul’s concert on the 29^th of March, a Friday. My plan originally was to go with two Qatari friends, a male and a female, a Sudanese girl, and an American/Egyptian girl, my sister. When we got there we were all able to get in except the Qatari female. We talked to the security, and they said that Qatari females aren't allowed there. When I asked why, they avoided my question by saying it’s the rules. Both the Qatari male and female left the concert. I decided to ask more about it and figured that Qatari females aren’t allowed to clubs or any place that might serve alcohol. 

When thinking about it, one would figure that this is the norm here because it’s an Arab, religious country. However, this poses the question of why are the males allowed to “party” publicly and the females are not? When I asked a Qatari female about this, she said –rather sarcastically- “People are afraid that girls would drink and do stupid stuff like get themselves pregnant. For guys there’s no evidence, except a bad hangover. It’s culturally accepted for guys although it’s frowned upon.”

I like thinking of myself as feminist, very pro women’s rights. As described in class, the feminism social movements aim at “establishing and defining equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women.” Although, I’m not attempting to discuss the idea of Qatari women consuming alcohol, I’m discussing the fact that they aren't allowed to get into a public space because of alcohol’s presence, something that doesn't hinder a Qatari male’s life. Doesn't seem very equal, does it?

Lifehouse! A music culture

After weeks of pleading and grueling hours of talking to my parents, I was able to convince them to go to the Dubai Jazz Festival. There was one specific band, Lifehouse, that I was dying to see.

Lifehouse is a band that has been together for almost eleven years and I fell in love with them after hearing one of their songs play in the first seasons of Smallville.

As soon as the band walked on stage the whole crowd went silent, among the thousands of people there was actual silence! People from different countries flew to dubai just to attend the concert. People of different cultures, some living in dubai and some from outside, all came together for one purpose. To forget about the world for ,what was originally, 90 minutes and become consumed in the world of amazing music. The perfect example of collective effervescence, even though i've never been to a sport event, I am quite sure the energy in this group would have topped any other crowd.

Jason Wade takes the mic and the crowd goes crazy, screams and applause were heard all over the place. The whole crowd was standing and swaying along with the music, singing the words to every single song being played. Even the songs in their new album made the fans get hyped up. Halfway through the concert the band started asking song requests from the audience and immediately they got a million requests. Jason Wade was genuinely shocked by the amount of people that knew their songs, he even began to say that they were initially planning on skipping this part of the show because they didn't expect anyone in the middle east would know any of their songs.

I guess its true what they say, always save the best for last. Their last few songs were out of their older album and you could hear the whole crowd sing along to all the lyrics of every song.

Between songs Jason would talk about random trips they went on in dubai and how he found sand dunning to be absolutely terrifying.

At one point, the lead singer's guitar microphone stopped working. While they were trying to fix that problem backstage, Jason began singing an acapella version of one of my favorite songs of all-time, the storm, and it was definitely the best version of the song i have ever heard.

The concert was supposed to end at exactly midnight and the band said their goodbyes and how they hope to play another concert in dubai and then they all left the stage. No one moved from where they were standing and the whole crowd began to chant WE WANT MORE! This went on for about 10 minutes and people did not want to give up.

I finally see Jason come back to the stage and the crowd went wild, screaming out the songs they wanted to hear again. The band begins to play the full versions of their older songs such as Everything, Broken, Hanging by the moment, and everyone in the crowd is beaming from ear to ear overcome with excitement. Even though no one knew each other it still felt like we were all the closest of friends, smiling and laughing with one another.

The show ended with the song Everything and it was the perfect ending to the perfect concert.

Are You Gaga For Pop Culture?

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Lady GaGa. No introduction needed. Just hearing her name brings to any reader’s mind garish images of her outlandish fashion choices, “Raw meat anyone?” After your mind gets over those recollections you are probably also beginning to hear echoes of all her catchy hits in your ears. Well, having gone through that archive of memories you’re probably not going to be shocked that she has created a pop culture wave teeming with opportunities for so

ciological interpretations.

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Alone, she has created a massive subculture of what she calls her "Little Monsters". These loyal fans come take admiration up to the brink of worship (young people are prone to overdoing it with infatuations). This adoration is expressed outwardly through clothing, as many social phenomena tend to be. They show up to her concerts dressed like her and have every song memorized to the letter. When these fans, or "little monsters" attend Lady GaGa's events, they tend to mimic her way of dressing - which is, to say the least, eccentric and peculiar.

The way in which her fans dress can be seen as a cultural symbol, because it means that they belong to the same subculture which GaGa has created. Their fashion sense screams out "Hey! I'm a Little Monster too!" It is a symbol of rebellion and anti-conformity; an ironic notion since they are all uniform within the same subculture. However, individual fans persist on thinking that they are oh-so-daring just because people do not usually dress in this way.

For the subculture she created, dressing this way is a cultural norm. However, in the pre-GaGa days, which believe it or not was less than three years ago, it would be considered a negative sanction. Okay, maybe if you wore the things she wears now in the pre-GaGa days you won’t get punished, but people would definitely look at you weirdly and consider calling the local police to possibly send you to the looney bin.

Max Weber, who is a well-known and well-respected German sociologist, stated that people look up to prophets and philosophers because they have the power to influence people into behaving a certain way and thus creating a culture, or subculture. This is exactly what Lady GaGa’s fans have done, they look up to her and she herself, can be said to be a cultural symbol of freedom and resistance to dominant cultural values.

Bryan Adams rocks Doha (sort of)

Sociologists do their best to describe the differences between what they call high culture and popular culture. High culture typically refers to cultural objects found in the fine arts -- classical music, the writings of William Shakespeare, the ballet, and the opera -- and often confers high status upon the consumer. Popular culture is basically the culture consumed by the masses. You know, American Idol and that sort of thing.



Something that's not easy to come by in Doha is live music. Sure, you can catch the occasional oud player in the souq, but live bands are a true rarity. Even more rare is a concert by a well-known musician. You have to fly to Dubai or Beirut for that type of thing. But on December 16, my wife and I actually got to see a real concert by a genuinely famous musician, one Bryan Adams.



Now, I've never been what you might call a big Bryan Adams fan, despite the fact that he's the top-selling male Canadian artist of all time. But in Doha, you take what you can get, and if Bryan Adams was coming to town, we weren't going to miss it.

And you know what? It wasn't bad. Granted, seeing Adams play his many many hits live didn't transform me into a superfan or anything, but we had a really great time singing along with about 5000 other folks. "Cuts Like a Knife?" Check. "Summer of 69?" Check. "(Everything I Do) I Do it for You?" But of course. Adams aims to please, which means hit after feel-good hit. And, wow, the dude's got a lot of hits. It was one of those concerts where you pretty much knew every song, even if you didn't realize it was a Bryan Adams song. All in all, a fun night, very similar to the one had by the couple in this video.



Now, had I known that these guys were playing in Abu Dhabi the same night, Bryan would have had to do everything he does for someone else. But it was a nice night on the beach in Doha. Yeah, that's right, the beach. It's winter here, which means it gets down into the upper 60s at night on occasion. Brrrrr!