Wajda by Haifa Al Mansour

For this active blog post I went to the Museum of Islamic art to attend the movie wajda, which was directed by Haifa Al Mansour, the first Saudi women to direct a movie. The movie discuses the issue of women’s right in Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia specifically. It portrays the life of wajda, a young girl who always dreamt of riding a bike, but the fact that it is not accepted by her society made it difficult to make her dream come true. It was surprising for me to know that women in Saudi Arabia before two weeks ago they where not allowed to ride a bike! And they only allowed them to rid bikes two weeks ago but with restrictions such as they can only ride bikes in parks and recreational areas, and they have to be accompanied by a male relative!

The movie is an example of neo-feminism because it talks about personal choice, and how wajda is fighting so hard to make her dream come true. This movie though it talks about an issue that is only in Saudi Arabia (bike and cars) but it discusses the issue of women’s right in middle east, yet not a lot of women were interested to come and watch. Before going there I expected to see more Qatari specially women attending such movie! However, there was about 12 Qatari attended this movie. The way she discusses the problem of women driving and girls riding bikes is by show the society’s attitude toward the problem.

When looking at the problem it is not only men to be blamed but also women!
I was wondering why women were not present in this movie! Most women in Middle East don’t appreciate women who fight for their rights! Is it the society that restricts them not to fight for their rights or is it that they are really happy with their lives and what they have? Why they are so reluctant to fight for their rights?

Women in Middle East care a lot about their reputation and their families’ reputation. Thus, they do what’s allowed and appreciated by the society. The pressures they face from the society around them force them to obey and conform. So, it is not usual to see women present in such places. It is not that they are not interested but they do what is expected from them.

After the movie there was a discussion with Haifa Al Mansour, the director, she talked about what inspired her to write it, and the difficulties she faced directing it. One of them was that she could not be on the street when they were shooting out doors, she had to stay in a van and talk to them through the phone. There is no rule that restricted Haifa not to be on the street when they were shooting but the fact that the society will not appreciate it she stayed at the van. from my opinion, women's right in Middle East countries need women's voice, determination.

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.

Miss Congeniality

Miss Congeniality is an American police comedy film, starring the beautiful Sandra Bullock. This movie can be considered as one of the girly movies, and it includes the ten common traits of the girly films that we learned in sociology class.

Define Gracie Hart

Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) is FBI agent shows no signs of having any femininity in her behavior or appearance. Her appearance is a crucial aspect of her identity. She has the feeling of ambivalence about the role of romance, marriage and work in woman’s life. Thus, Gracie can be defined as the protagonist, because she is a single woman who works for a living, and whose work defines her.

Eric Matthews (Benjamin Bratt), is Gracie’s colleague whose assigned to lead the high profile case of a terrorist called “The Citizen” instead of her to stop the attack. Both of them determine that “The Citizen” 's next target will be the Miss United States beauty pageant. Eric assigns her to go undercover as a pageant contestant to see if she can catch “The Citizen”. This movie takes place in a large, well-known city, which is San Antonio, Texas; where the beauty contest takes place.

The Transformation

The FBI used the assistance of the previous pageant contestant coach Victor Melling (Michael Caine), to do the impossible task of transforming Gracie, not only into a woman, but into a credible beauty pageant contestant. Victor represents the consumer culture, in which everything goes right with him. There is a theme of personal transformation, as she becomes beautiful and attractive. Gracie enters the contest as Miss New Jersey. She suits the example of the Miss United States beauty pageant. She had the ability to transform which helps her lead to resolve her conflicts and to achieve her goals.

The Past.

Gracie has difficult time to proceed in the transformation. Victor continues to teach the tomboyish Gracie how to dress, walk and act like a contestant. She is not used to such behaviors. She has the sense of nostalgia or glorifying the past during the contest when she demonstrates self-defense techniques during the talent competition. She has the hard times when she can’t continue in this undercover job. She thinks she doesn’t belong to this place.

The Happy Ending

Gracie gets to know the other contestants. Then, she discovers the evil element is present at the pageant. She will do whatever it takes to crush that element and protect her new friends, namely the other innocent contestants.

Gracie displays some femininity during the movie. She begins to have more womanly feelings and that attracts the attention of men, in particular, she starts to attract Eric.

When Eric fails to support Gracie, he then realizes that Gracie’s suspicions are correct, and he returns to help her. Gracie surprises everyone, including herself by discovering “The Citizen”. She and Eric save the day, and they arrest the criminals. At the end, Eric admits his crush on her, and she starts a relationship with Matthews. She finally lead succeeds in her goal of having affair with the man of her choice.

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.

The Dilemma of Being a Female!

     The gender rules in Qatar are very discriminative toward females in so many aspects. Ladies know these aspects and they also know not to cross them. I’ll provide few examples of those rules in this blog and I’m going to analyze it in such a way to reflect what are those rules. The book "Cinematic Sociology" mentioned how the social construction of any society categorizes how people act toward each other based on gender. This provides the people of a guidance of how to interact between each other as a society.

     The first example, is about the workers in Qatar; all of them are males, like the construction workers and the security guardes in Education City. There are only two exceptions, like, the female security guard in Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and in Northwestern University in Qatar Studio. Even the workers outside of the studio building are males. The logic behind this is the idea of "building" and "protection" is often associated with males.

     Another example is when I went to the desert with Northwestern Evanston exchange students. There was no Qatari females who practiced falconry, which is a sport exclusive to men.

     However, a Germen lady arrived and I was very impressed by her. She had embraced the Qatari culture by covering her hair with a Qatari scarf that is initially designed to be worn by men. Its not just that she works in a field that dominated by men, but she also embraced the aspect of how men dress. Her ability to redefine the social construction was, again, very impressive.

     In the year that I have driven a car , I never seen a woman in a car wash or drop her car off by the garage, which is the third aspect of how females are discriminated against by the social construction that society created. This is due to the mentality that this is a "man’s job" to drive.  So I decided for the sake of experiment, to go there one more time and see how it is like.

     What I had anticipated was correct. There was no women there. It is worthy to mention that ladies can break the cultural rule sometimes and go there for a car wash, if they are willing to endure the awkwardness of workers and other drivers staring at them with one question at their minds: "What the hell are you doing here?!"

Falconry and women

I don’t even know how I can possibly write this without sounding completely ignorant and sexist. Yesterday, I went on a falconry trip to witness how the hunting process takes place when you have a trained bird of prey. So we drove really faraway and reached out a deserted area in the north.

When I stepped out of that Land Cruiser I was shocked to see a woman holding this beautiful falcon and fixing its cap. The thing is, I’m quite the feminist and I do believe that women are capable of doing everything a man can and vise versa. Everything is possible. But to see a woman, in the middle of the desert (literarily), giving us lessons on falconry and looking so boss was just astonishing.

In a patriarchal society, it is really hard to find women doing things that men do to display their masculinity. Especially when it comes to a sport like falconry. In this culture, falcons are associated with strength, poise and total control and so are the men. The “Falcon Lady” (that’s what we called her because nobody had the guts to ask her again for her name) showed us the ropes and answered all our lame questions with scientific facts and personal experiences. We were very impressed by how much she knew and she wasn’t even old or anything. On the other hand, the men who came with us and tricked us (not intentionally) into thinking that they were going to do the hunting, just sat there and cuddled with their female Chihuahua dog. I guess that is what you would call hybrid masculinity. A combined toughness, decisiveness, and hardness with sensitivity, compassion, and vulnerability. Those same guys brought their younger daughters along to teach them about falconry.

I guess the reason why I was shocked is because of gender socialization. Gender socialization is the process where people learn the norms related to sex and gender. I know that women are biologically different than men, but I was socialized to believe that men are the ones who do the rough, tough kind of sports (like hunting with birds of prey) while women should pick more tender activities. Which is totally bull because she was doing something really amazing and enjoying it.

I am really glad that there are people out here who are willing to break the “rules” society made to pursue what they most enjoy.

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 Socialization Conflicts in Doha

Food culture in Doha is one of the most important traditions that people uphold in Qatar. For example: if someone is visiting Doha for the first time, one of the things the citizens of Doha insist on offering the visitor is the food. Although the food recipes doesn’t necessarily originate in Doha, but people in Qatar perceive food as great social icebreakers.  

 Interestingly enough, when I observed the food culture in Doha I realized that the gender socialization notions and its applications in the Arab culture is conflicted. First, let me explain what I mean by the gender socialization. Gender socialization is the female and male genders’ learning process to the socially acceptable behaviors and attitudes to each gender’s role. 

In Doha’s culture, the culinary experience is one of the factors that gender is stratified by. Knowing how to cook in the Arab world is strongly affiliated with being a woman. Men are encouraged to know how to cook, however women are supposed and should know how to cook. They should also know how to serve the food for their fathers, husbands, and guests. From observation, I realized that this ideology conflicts with what’s taking place in the Arab restaurants of Doha. 

When I went to Bait El-sham, a Syrian restaurant,

 most of the waiters were males. I checked with the manager and he mentioned that the chef was a male too. Another Arabic restaurant that I went to is the Orient Pearl, which had very few female waitresses, much like Al Saha restaurant, Tajin, Damasca, and Morjan, which had mostly male waiters. Thus, the gender socialization that both genders were exposed to in their upbringing is conflicted with what’s applied in these Arabic restaurants. 

To further understand the conflict that’s taking place, I analyzed more Arab ideologies and gender socialization patterns that can be connected with this conflict. In Doha and the Arab world, there’s a huge distinction between the private, in the house, and public, outside of the house, sphere. The public sphere is more restrictive towards females. In Doha, part of the gender socialization that both genders are brought up with is that women can’t go out late, and can’t go out all the time, where as men are allowed to. 

 In trying to balance between the two deeply rooted beliefs that Arab men and women are brought up with, what became socially acceptable is that men should cook in these Arabic restaurants because it’s a male dominant society. Never mind the strong belief that cooking is associated with females, if the issue is one that has to do with gender, females are almost always contained in the private sphere of the home, something that we, females, are starting to break free from nowadays.

 

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!