Who are FEMEN anyway?

The phenomenon of protesting naked took over the media in the past year. Women who consider themselves free go out in the streets topless to introduce their issues and to bring attention to them. These women are not asking for women right as much as they are asking for their “own” rights. This Neo-Feminist movement started by a group that was founded in 2008 called FEMEN. Their first topless protest was against sex tourists. The FEMEN group started appearing on the media as something wrong, but it inspired other women to defend their own rights. My example here is Alia Al-Mahdi who is an Egyptian girl, and she was the first Egyptian girl to do a topless protest.
Since Egypt is now ruled by Mohamed Morsi - an ex-member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood - , it is not surprising that there are people who are against the Islamic System. While Al-Mahdi was in Europe, Al-Mahdi and her friends went to the Egyptian embassy in Sweden topless holding signs that says “NO to Sharia Constitution”. This a message of a FEMEN Arab about “her” rights for not wearing hijab, and getting her own freedom. Al-Mahdi caused a huge argument among the Arab countries, especially Egypt, with the proposals of some Egyptians to not consider Al-Mahdi an Egyptian after what she did. This new FEMEN move by Arab women are called the "topless jihad".
In Islam, the women rights are equaled with men, but to an extent. For some of the conservative countries such as Saudia Arabia, Women are not allowed to drive or work a decent job. Two days ago, the first Saudi women attorney/activist was registered. This woman did not go out and did a topless protest. From my perspective, it is not freedom if you just take off your clothes. Women who take off their clothes are indicated as prostitutes no matter what their needs/wants were. There is always a way to convey your message to the community.
In my opinion, in the sociology, the three waves of feminism were nothing but a start for what we are seeing these days; women using nudity to ask for their rights. Women should have the rights to work as long as it does not conflict with any religious context (no matter what was their religion). Also it is not the women rights to use nudity and disturb people to get what they want.

Girls in Industrial Area

While one's sex refers to the biological features that determines if they were male or female, gender, on the other hand, refers to "the meanings a the society gives to masculinity and femininity" (Sutherland & Feltey, p.132).

Worldwide, strength, boldness, aggressiveness, ...etc. are seen as masculine traits, while femininity is usually thought of as being emotional, submissive, sensitive, nurturing, ...etc. Despite the major achievements done by women in the Arab world, the society still prefers if they perform within their "feminine" context, as they are mainly seen as nurturing mothers and loving wives only. These gender stereotypes have been negotiated over the years, however, they have not completely vanished.
Nowadays, women can study, work, travel, and do a lot of other "active" things, however, there are still a lot of constrictions that they face everyday.

A few days ago, my friend and I had to go to the industrial area to pick up a phone booth from Qtel/Ooreedoo, a prop that we need for a film that we are making. Industrial area is an area with all the garages, factories, car service companies,... etc., and it's usually a male-dominated area as it is mostly filled with workers and laborers. When we first mentioned that we are going to our friends, they were very surprised that we are two girls going there alone without the company of a guy. Some of our male friends offered to accompany us, but we refused.

It was very interesting to see how our gender was an issue even though our sex was not. We went to the industrial area regardless of all the comments that we got such as: "Better safe than sorry".

We arrived to Qtel on time, and we were ready to pick up the phone booth and load it on to the truck. However, the Qtel representative and the truck driver did not let us, and called some of the workers to do it. We thought that they were being nice so we agreed and left.

However, when we left the industrial area and reached our location, it was only us and the truck driver. He tried to load the phone booth off the truck alone but it was too heavy and it almost broke. Again, we offered to help but he refused, and called a stranger off the street to help him instead.

This incident like many others was just a reminder for my friend and I of how our gender determines the way the society and other people see us.

Gender Differences!

In our last sociology class we learned about how does gender affect people’s behaviors, and does genes or environment influence those behaviors. First let me start by demonstrating the difference between “gender” and “sex.” Sex is the biological characteristic of being a male and female, whereas gender it refers to the social roles that men and women play. So, the society and the environment have a great influence on how does male and female act.

When men or a women act the way they does it is not due to genes, in fact it is mostly due to the expectation of the society. When first a child is born and it’s a boy people will start treating him differently that if it was a baby-girl. Though he is just an infant yet his parents will keep saying, “you’re a man you should be strong.” They will start getting him balls, cars, painting his bedroom walls with blue and many other thing that the society have decided that those this are only for boys. If it was a girl on the other hand, they will start treating her more tenderly and getting her Barbie dolls, and pink stuff. But the question is why does the color blue and the color pink are associated with boys and girls respectively?

It is the Gender Socialization effect!

Gender socialization is the process of learning the social expectations and attitudes associated with one's sex. And because people tend to link blue with boys and pink with girls, it is unexpected for a baby-boy to wear pink cloths. Gender socialization gets people to know their roles according to their genders.

Women at the house are expected to do the housework and the men are breadwinners, thus due to gender socialization people tend to do the job that is expected from them.

Driving cars in Qatar

In Qatar Driving cars is associated with men, most Qatari families do not allow their daughters to drive because it is a men task. They’d rather have a driver than allowing their daughters to drive! However, many Qatari girls are breaking those rules that the societies setup. However, it is unusual to see a man breaking the gender rules. Men do not get involve in activities that are seen “girli activities” by the society! It is their masculinity that is affecting their actions. Masculinity is set of qualities that are considered to be characteristic of a male. This explains that it is easier for a female to gross-gender boundaries than for a male!  

Sociological analysis through pottery

By having a full chapter about Gender and a long discussion about this topic during this week, I decided to talk about Greek Potteries. Because they show within a moment; the huge difference between males and females in that ancient civilization.

            Based on many survived artworks we can see the clear difference between the two genders. The following Greek Potteries show women activities, how they dress and look like.

            A woman sitting on a chair looking at her self through a mirror. That shows the importance of appearance to Greek women.

This Image shows 2 women carrying pieces of clothes and a large bowl in the middle between them.  This scene is about laundry.

This scene is divided into 2 friezes; the first one is for a group of women weaving. And the small one above shows women in a wedding ceremony.

We can see a strong connection between all the images of the women. Almost all of them are about Domestic and indoors activities.  In general, the house and children was the responsibility of the women.

            On the other hand, her are some images of men on Greek potteries. 

             In this Image, we have two men, perhaps athletes, fighting or sparring each other. While someone is just observing what is happening.

An Image of a man carrying a bow for hunting with his hound. As we can see, it is an outdoor scene. 

A scene of a group of warriors marching toward a battlefield. 

The scene on this pottery shows a young man, on the right, listening to an old man, on the left, playing music. Maybe the scene is about a musical lesson. So, we can say that men had more access to education than women.

Greek potteries are a key factor to look at Greek people’s social life. Just from few examples; we can see the big and clear difference between the two genders. Woman are for domestic activities and indoors obligations. Men are all about masculinity, power and outdoor activities. Also, they  have a better chance to get education than women.

From a sociological point of view, ascribed status, sex, determined a lot in the Greek’s life. Females are inferior to males. However, even though they are restricted their role is still very important. Despite how we look at their Gender Polarization right now, they found their own way to divide their social role. Each gender carries a role that supports the society and helps maintaining it.

  

The dumba$$ and the donkey a$$.

A person's sex is an ascribed master status as it dominates all the other social factors he or she has. No matter what race, ethnicity, or occupation a person has, the first thing that is noticeable is their sex. "Sex is based on primary characteristics, the anatomical traits essential to reproduction." People often confuse the terms sex and gender, however in sociology they are separate terms. Gender is defined as a "social distinction based on culturally conceived and learned ideas about appropriate appearance, behavior and mental and emotional characteristics for males and females."



In society individuals tend to be segregated based on their personal characteristics, including gender. Some of these segregation's are indicated clearly, such as bathrooms that visibly show male and female images, while others aren't directly indicated, such as clothing stores. One thing that is considered as a form of gender polarization, yet we usually fail to consider is insults. Insult words are usually used to directly attack a person's gender. Society has distinct perceptions about males and females and insults target these attributes as a form of sanctions.





A great example of this is a recent incident that happened with me last week with Haifa Wehbe. Haifa Wehbe is an Arab, and sometimes international superstar. She supposedly sings, acts and models, but that is debatable. Basically, she is the Kim Kardashian of the Arab world; talentless and exposes her body and sexuality for fame. I recently found her twitter account and was looking through her timeline, so I just had to say something. Considering she is a famous celebrity with tens of thousands of followers, I never thought she would even bother or have the time to reply back to me, so I called her a dumbass. Big mistake. Only a minute later I got a direct reply back from her saying "did you look at your face? Coz it sure does look like a donkey a$$." I was in disbelief and for many reasons. I couldn't believe she even had the time to reply back to me, I couldn't believe what she said to me, I couldn’t believe she would be so immature and I couldn't believe she used dollar signs to spell out ass. Keep in mind, we are speaking about a 35 year old woman, who also happens to be a "mother." I replied back to her immediately by calling her wh*re and once again, a dumbass.







It was a only a matter of time before I got a wave of insults flooding my timeline, all from her crazy and psychotic fans. Looking back at the insults I realized that the majority of them were gender polarized and were meant to directly affect me, specifically as a female. I got called all sorts of names, both in Arabic and English. Words such as b*tch, sl*t, wh*re, ugly and sharmouta were thrown out at me. Haifa also got her share of insults from her haters. Most of which were prostitute, ugly, fake and plastic.Once again, words that affected her image and her sexual behavior. It was so funny seeing everyone getting excited over such a petty "cat fight". Some random person even said "bring out your claws kitties. Meow." I found this reference quite hilarious because any fight involving women is usually called a cat fight and if you were to call a fight between men that, it would be demeaning to their masculinity.







Aside from insults we also received compliments. They were pretty much the opposite of the offensive slurs. Remarks such as queen, gorgeous and beautiful. While these insults and compliments that both Haifa and I received were different, they had one thing in common- they attacked our femininity. We can see that the things females value the most are related to their physical image, sexual patterns and emotional traits. I didn't take anything personally and I had a really good laugh from all this, even though some of the stuff was intense. Basically as someone put it, I "gave Haifa a 'Wa-Wa' that she couldn't handle."