Where is the Saudi Woman's Public Identity?

      With the relatively recent uproar about Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving, many questions concerning the Saudi Arabian woman’s freedom have been brought up in Western media. Most of the Western outrage is specifically directed at the ban on driving, as driving is generally considered a basic right. The situation gradually seems more bizarre to Western audiences when one learns that countries neighboring Saudi Arabia, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, allow women to drive despite the fact that these countries are also Islamic countries that abide by Sharia law (albeit not as strictly as Saudi Arabia). To these Western audiences, denying this simple right is immediately perceived as an almost barbaric oppression of freedom. As a Saudi Arabian woman myself, though, I realize that the means of finally obtaining freedom for Saudi Arabian women stretches far beyond the right to drive. In truth, I believe that the entire driving dilemma is quite petty in comparison to more dire issues that are hidden behind the fanciful dream of women driving in Saudi Arabia.

      As a Saudi Arabian woman, I am not only banned from driving. I cannot issue a national ID without the permission of my male guardian. I am unable to travel without my male guardian’s permission, and as soon as I leave the country, my male guardian is notified of my departure via a text message from the government. If I were a divorced mother with children, it would be impossible for me to create a bank account for my own children without the permission of their father. In addition to that, I am not allowed to work without my male guardian’s permission, regardless of whether the workplace is public or private. The aforementioned issues are merely scratching the surface of this heavily male-dependent governmental system. The sociological dilemma for women in Saudi Arabia, though, does not lie in the evident case of gender inequality. Instead, the sociological dilemma lies in a problem of identity resultant from gender inequality.

      Many blame the strong presence of religion in the country’s governmental protocols as the reason for the Saudi Arabian woman’s lack of a public identity. The truth is that religion does not in any way cause this severe case of gender segregation (or, in this case, gender dependency). The culprit is the governmental protocol alone. Assuming that women are allowed to drive at some point, integrating what would be a new phenomenon for Saudi Arabians (particularly Saudi Arabian men) would still be difficult. It will be nearly impossible for most men to accept it when the country’s political structure forces female dependence on male guardians. If change is to occur in the country, then Saudi Arabian women should at least be given the right to issue their own national ID card, without the approval of a male guardian. Only then can the right to drive be more safely integrated to society.

      This issue of identity greatly affects the way we are perceived by others, particularly Westerners. Chelsea Handler of the comedy talk show Chelsea Lately criticized the travel limitations enforced on Saudi Arabian women, as shown in the video below.

      Fortunately, the identity problem in Saudi Arabia has been gradually improving. For instance, many Saudi Arabian women from the cosmopolitan city of Jeddah have been challenging limitations on creative expression through various means. Several Saudi Arabian fashion lines have been launched and artists began to collaborate on various gallery displays, and even created their own community. A group consisting of four Saudi Arabian girls even went as far as to completely challenge both social and religious customs by creating the very first all-female Saudi Arabian rock band: The Accolade. The band’s first single Pinocchio (linked below) lead to both outrageously negative responses from religious officials and unyielding support from Saudi Arabians, both young and old.

A bag from the Saudi Arabian brand Fyunka
Source

         
      The Saudi Arabian government has also begun to offer more opportunities for women to become a more active public force. Recently, women were appointed in the country's Shoura Council. The ban on women working in public places has also been lifted. Now, women can work as saleswomen and as supermarket cashiers, among other jobs. Although this has obvious positive implications on the socioeconomic statuses of many Saudi Arabian families, it also heavily impacts the public identity of the Saudi Arabian woman. As she becomes a more active public force, the preconceived (and horribly misguided) Saudi Arabian notion of women being frail and helpless without the support of a man gradually diminishes. With this commendable support from the government, there may be hope for the Saudi Arabian woman, after all.

Saudi Arabian women working in supermarket cashiers
Source

Subculture? Not a Subculture?

What happened to the Bedouin’s identity? And what happened to the Hadar (urban) identity? In the past, Bedouins had different norms than the Hadar. They had different dialects. Some Bedouin still use these dialects today. For example, some of the people from Al-Hajri family end their words with “tess” when they are addressing a female. Bedouins had a different lifestyle and different tools that they used. In addition to poetry, they use the rababa, which is a musical instrument that looks like a violin. However, the rababa has only one string. While the Hadar were involved with trading and jobs related to pearl diving, the Bedouins were practicing different jobs and activities. These activities included falconry and taking care of their livestock. On one hand, the livestock represent their capital (Ras almal). On the other hand, the Hadar’s capital included ships and pearls. Because Qatar is a peninsula, the norm was to be part of the Hadar and live by the sea. The fact that the Bedouins had their own dialect, music, style and activities made them stand out as a spectacular subculture. Subcultures are groups of people who vary and differ from the mainstream in language, style, music and activities. It is a spectacular subculture because their practices are not hidden. Bedouins’ practice of poetry and falconry are activities that we can see. The spectacular subcultures are out of the ordinary, so they attract our attention as the Bedouins do with their practices.

In the article Where Have The Bedouin Gone?, Donald Cole states, “I argue for seeing Bedouin as ordinary, everyday people.” In addition to that, the Bedouin identity blendes with the mainstream Hadar identity and vice versa. Some Bedouin have moved from tents to houses. A few of them live urban lifestyles while still practicing some of their Bedouin activities, such as falconry and poetry. Some of them speak like urban people. Some might argue that Bedouin’s identity is presented in their heritage and ancestry, but it is focused on ancestry more than heritage in Qatar. Currently, Bedouins still keep their livestock (capital). However, they hire shepherds to take care of them. Such practice is not associated with Bedouins only.
I visited a farm in which people hired shepherds to take care of their livestock. There was a tent made of goat hair. However, the tent had glass windows and a door. Inside the tent, there is a television and two air conditionors. There were chairs around the tent. The chairs looked modern, but were covered with old fabric. There was a rebaba on the side of it as a decoration. Outside the tent, there were camels, goats and parrots. The style of the chairs and the weird combination of livestock and parrots, reflect how modern life has affected the identity.

(Pictures I took at the farm)

After describing the place, it gives the feeling that this is a Bedouin farm. However, it is not. The farm belongs to a Hadar family. The Bedouins are no longer a subculture because their identity has merged with the Hadar identity to produce a national identity. Bedouin no longer dominate falconry, poetry and taking care of livestock.
When a subculture’s identity is becoming mainstream, it usually happens through two forms: Commodity and ideological. The commodity form draws the relation between the subculture and the other industries. Having a farm, livestock, and purchasing old tools became a commodity. There are many shops around Doha that are specialized in putting tents and selling falconry tools. Because these things can be sold, they became mainstream. The farm I visited was in an area of more than 50 farms owned by Bedouin and Hadar. The government owns the area, but it has rented it to people. Those who do not own a certain number of goats or sheep do not have the right to rent. As a result of the government’s encouragement for people to purchase land and livestock, the practices that were associated with Bedouin are parts of the Hadar identity too. There for, the ideology of how Bedouin were looked at as being Bedouin has changed. The ideological form deals with how the presentation of a subculture in the media change the way people perceive the subculture. During Qatar national day, the national television plays footage of camels and people doing Bedouin practices. This portrayal allows the Hadar to be more familiar with such practices, so they are more likely to accept them. This proves how the culture is not constant, but changeable. What was supposed to be a Bedouin thing or a Hadar thing is now just considered a Qatari thing.

Living in Qatar and seeing how many Hadar act Bedouin on some occasions, while Bedouin act like Hadar on other occasions, led me to this assessment. Although I’m part of the Hadar, I have cousins who practice falconry and hangout with Bedouin. This doesn’t make them Bedouins, but makes the Bedouin practices mainstream and not subcultural. The fact that Bedouin are not a subculture might be general to most of the Bedouin. However, there might be some extreme cases where Bedouin are more attached to their Bedouin identities.

(Picture from the archive of my cousin's falcon)

Miss Congeniality

Miss Congeniality movie revolves around the FBI agent Gracie Harts who works undercover as Miss New Jersey with her team to protect the Miss United States Beauty Pageant from a possible terrorist attack.

Throughout the movie we can see a huge transformation in Gracie’s identity. At the very beginning Gracie seems to be very masculine in both her looks and her behavior. She doesn’t wear any make-up, doesn’t do her eyebrows, she doesn’t even brush her hair. Moreover, she is aggressive in everything she does, including eating, walking, and laughing. One of the ladies she meets at a bar asks her if the FBI forces all women over there to wear these “really masculine shoes”, and Gracie clarifies that its not the FBI, its her own personal choice. Moreover, her beauty pageant consultant for the mission, Victor Melling, compared her walk to the walk of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.



Gracie faces a hard time accepting her new assignment to work undercover as Miss New Jersey in the pageant. She gets a new look that shocks her colleagues, where she starts to look more feminine to others.




We can also see through the film how Gracie starts to socialize and learn the norms of this new culture she has to fit in. She takes the instructions from her adviser and watches video clips of beauty pageants and starts imitating the moves of the contestants.

At this stage Gracie’s front stage behavior is in the pageant trying to act more feminine, and her backstage behavior is with her team where she can act masculine, as she’s used to. However, as the time passes and through her interaction with the other girls in the pageant, Gracie seems to absorb more of these norms and attitudes and become more feminine overall, while maintaining some aspects of her original masculine identity, like power and independence.



Her transformation gets her the guy, her FBI colleague Eric Matthews, after she had really low chances in finding any guy who would be interested in her. This shows us how society as a social force puts a lot of pressure on individuals shaping their identities in order to have some of the things we desire, like a partner, which would be considered as positive sanctions for following the norms of the society for how we look and how we behave.

McDonaldization in Your Homes!

As soon as you walk into someone’s house you could automatically get a sense of the culture. Some houses even have a particular smell that could identify where the residents are from. Walking into my friend’s house I mindlessly recognized the scent I smell in all Sudanese houses I enter. This is actually the scent of some products they use in the house that are shipped in to Qatar from Sudan. The next thing I notice is the color and brightness of the house. It’s usually white and more blunt than my house for example, which gives their space a more temporary feel. A lot of the Sudanese houses I’ve been to use white lights, in contrast to mine, where we have warmer lighting.



You get a sense that the Sudanese residents don’t really consider this house in Qatar their home. Whereas for Palestinians, who constantly struggle to live in a subculture, try to make these houses their homes. When I say subculture, I mean a smaller culture within another culture that Palestinian usually live in. Palestinians use warmer colors, a lot of carpets and really design their houses in a way to make it feel like a home to them. In my home, and a lot of Palestinian homes I’ve visited, we try to add a lot of Palestinian elements to the house as a reminder of that place we “belong to,” even if we didn’t buy these objects from Palestine.




Sudanese usually have a lot of African and tribal objects around their “temporary” house that are bought back from home, to remind them of that place that they will eventually go back to, their real home.






However, the households did have some things in common. To begin with, there was a feel of alienation, which could be defined as a state-of-being where human life is dominated by the forces of its own inventions. The houses were machine-dominated. The families weren’t connecting in conversation, but most of the family members were watching TV. While the teenagers or working children were on their laptops, connected to the Internet. Some of the younger children were playing video games.




When the mother or housemaid cooked or even made tea, they would use a kettle, microwave, gas-run oven and so on. Everyone in the house was using a machine. Some of the siblings even communicated through the use of their cell phones, instead of verbal communication. So, even if the culture is different or the dialect they use is different, whether you’re Sudanese or Palestinian you are influenced by this idea of “McDonaldization.” In sociology, McDonaldization is a process where society is increasingly run like a fast-food restaurant. This means that we’re all being influenced by the idea of rationalization and even households could be modernized some way or another. This definitely can’t sound very literal, where a household could never really be a McDonald’s. However, all homes try to be as efficient, predictable and controlled as possible. They have a set of rules to be followed, try to be as efficient as possible with time, money etc. and predictable with honesty and the open relationship everyone has with one another. With time, the children in the house and the parents start demanding more. Here, control and calculation come in, where they need to monitor the amount of things they buy and consume.

Our Identity Though Our Costumes

It’s amazing how we can tell a person’s identity and his/her position in life by just looking at the way they dress or act. In almost everywhere you go to, there will always be people that have different jobs. In every home, people have positions and roles. For example, the parents are the ones in control. When entering any home for the first time, you can immediately tell who are the parents, the children, and the servants if there were any. These observations come naturally. Some of these observations are an ascribed status. Age and ethnicity is an ascribed status. By looking at the person, you can naturally tell their age group and their ethnicity by their appearance. However a mother on the other hand is an achieved status, she chose to build her family

The way people dress is based on who they are in the society. When you see the people in your everyday life, you assume what their job is from their costume. Uniforms of any kind of job act as a status symbol. For example, you can identify a police officer through his uniform. There are also other costumes that are common in our everyday life. Examples are: Workers, housemaids, school students, chefs and businessmen.

The costumes make it easier for people to identify who these people are. People have different jobs based on how they are dressed. For example, if you are in a restaurant you tell the waiter what you would like to order. You know who the waiter is and call him because of the uniform.

The army on the other hand is part of the mechanical solidarity. They all act and think in the same way with the same costume. An army cannot be an army without a large group of people in order to perform the job correctly. In most cases the groups such as a basketball team or an army are considered as ingroups. They have a connection between each other and they are closely tied to each other to form a team.