The Arab Feminism Wave

My parents are dentists (scary, I know). When I asked them once how much they make and they told me, I realized that my mom makes a little bit less money than my dad. When I asked her about the reason as to why they give my dad more money, she said, it’s because your dad is the man of the house and in this culture he is the one who is supposed to take care of the family, so they give him more money for household expenses.

This conversation happened when I was a child, but I still do remember how shocking it was for me because all I thought about then was how unfair it would be for me when I grow up and decide to be the woman of my own house, no man involved. Would they give me more money? Aren’t I the breadwinner too?

Certainly, things in Qatar have changed (not the salary thing though, it’s still intact in the government sectors) but women are still thriving for better chances of equality and fairness. Most of the mothers I know are prime examples for the second shift. The second shift is the jobs that working wives do to run the household after they finish the workday. They all deserve that extra money since they contribute to the household… like a lot!

Anyways, more and more young women are becoming quite the neo-feminists. Neo- Feminism does not have a social agenda; it emphasizes personal fulfillment above all else. Young women focus on their education and jobs, not for the purpose of supporting a family or building one, but for their own personal wants and needs. It’s the concept of “Spending my money on myself.” That’s why you see a lot of girls in Education City and a lot of them with designer shoes.

Shopping is a big thing for girls here. Not for me though, I really hate shopping (I’m more of the amusement parks kind of person). Consumer culture is pretty popular here and the fancy malls we have aren’t helping. All adds for all sorts of products try to target these neoliberal women and tell them, “hey, you work hard, you deserve this” or “You want to be different and brand new, then you gotta do this.”

Like seriously, nobody is benefiting more from feminism than big corporations. Despite the fact that I’m a feminist, I’m a little bit tad suspicious about all those chick flick movies and “be the independent women” kind of messages that circulate in media. Because, is it just me, or the more feminist you are, the more shopping you gotta do and the more sexualized you otta be. No, thank you, sir. This Dove short film really got me thinking about this:

Perhaps we should be careful with those who claim to be supporting us when all they really are doing is milking our money and altering our perception of ourselves.

Fashion & feminism

Every chick flick movie is entitled to at least one montage sequence that shows the protagonist going through a “makeover” that usually consists of extensive shopping and beauty treatments. Everyone goes shopping, whether male of female but it’s known universally that women shop for fun, and sometimes, they consider shopping a stress reliever.

So what is it that makes women enjoy shopping? Is it the pleasure of buying clothes that will change how we look? Or is it the pleasure of just spending money? If you ask me, for a long time ago, shopping has turned from a process of attaining essential needs to a process that reinforces what Hilary Rander calls in her book, autonomous individualism. In her book Neo-Feminist Cinema, Rander attributes the autonomous individual to the woman who apprehends her pleasure for herself and whose health can be measured by the body’s capacity to experience itself as pleasurable. So shopping is now a way of proving one’s independence.

So, Do the female representations in media effect our own perception of power and being a feminist? Well, being surrounded, or suffocated, by the media that advocates for consumerism played a role in turning most women into neo-feminists. According to Rander, Neo-feminism means, “control over one’s body/face/self, accomplished through the right acquisitions can maximize one’s value at both work and home.” Although we might not be aware of it, we shop for the pleasure of having the power to choose what we want and how we look.

Although being a shopaholic in some way contradicts with one of many things that feminism stands for, that is liberating women from being sexualized in media, it seems that Neo-feminism has changed this view. Neo-feminism encourages consumerism and individualism, while on the other hand; feminism had always advocated for female solidarity and independence. So it is still possible to be a feminist and a shopaholic? 

Shopping Habits: Women and Men

People’s taste varies from a person to another. It depends on what is your gender. Men usually do not care what to wear as along as it is emphasizing their muscles. On the hand, women likes to wear what can represent them as a sexy cute attractive female that men will keep an eye on. It is a fact that men care about how a woman look compared to her personality. In some books that I read, 80% of men’s attraction to women is based on their looks and 20% is based on their personalities. In contrast, women 80% care about the personality and 20% about the looks. In general, women like to go shopping to look good and keep on track on the fashion revolution that is occurring. Women are usually accompanied with their men or their girlfriends. In the Qatari Society, women here go to shop alone, leaving men at work or home.

I went to Villagio Mall yesterday to observe the sociological pattern of how people go shopping and with whom. I found a lot of interesting facts that I have not known before. Qatari women in Qatar go shopping alone, or with kids and girlfriends. Qatari men do not interact with the shopping process and buying clothes. It is the mother’s mission to buy clothes for herself or the kids. However, non-Qatari people from different nationalities go shopping with anyone they find available. Asians, other Arabs, White, Black and people from different ethnicities go with their wives. Social class has nothing to do with people who go shopping. It is all about the mentality. Qatari men buy their own clothes without the help of women. They have their own tailor.

In Sociology, this discrimination, if I may call it, varies from a society to another. I just wanted to experiment the concept of gender socialization. I found out the norms here. It is interesting that only non-Qatari men interact with women to buy clothes and different stuff for the house. What was not clear to me is that even it was a Friday night, not a lot of children were there. This is made it a bit harder for me to observe another pattern which is the shopping for kids. Who does it? And with who? Overall, I found what I want, and it was interesting to learn these things about the Qatari society.