The eternal man vs woman problem

So we've seen men flex their muscles and rescue their family from danger,work tirelessly to put food on the table for them and epitomize the responsible, reliable person; both in reel and real life. This self-sufficient characteristic that men have always been associated with represents what sociologists call the 'breadwinner system'. The breadwinner system emphasizes the belief that all societies are patriarchal and that men are often discharged with the responsibility of earning in their household. What about their counterparts then? The role of women in families and in societies at large has always been one to ponder. While traditionally  expected to stay at home and carry out all their filial obligations perfectly, there are enough examples of women from the past and present to show that this is no longer the case. They have broken the stereotype that women are mainly noticed for their appearance and need help from men to take care of themselves and their family.

One such example is that of Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India for almost two decades. Indira Gandhi's rise to the apex of the political scene in India was astonishing as it came at a time when the cultural beliefs of the nation were very much in the nascent, conservative state. Despite being labelled "mute doll" by those who opposed her ascension to the position of Prime Minister and seeing her party form two groups over her progress, she became one of India's most influential leaders of all time. She was responsible for drafting changes in the way the Indian economy would work, encouraging movements such as the Green revolution to develop the conditions of the agriculture sector and in expanding India's bilateral relationships with countries such as the United States, Iran and other Asian countries. What made her achievements even more significant as far as defining the new role of women is that she was also responsible for raising her children and taking care of everything that a woman and a mother was expected to.

Women have not only made contributions in the field of politics, even the corporate world has seen tremendous development from their side. The chairman of Pepsi Co. Indira Nooyi is today one of the most influential women in the world. As the head of one of the world's largest organizations one would expect her to be fully devoted to her business and not have time for anything else. However, as she was quoted saying in an interview, in spite of her commitments to her work whenever she returned home she was forced by her mother to look after her husband and her children in addition to helping out with the household chores. Quite a busy life by any standard!In fact, Indra Nooyi is believed to not sleep for more than four hours a day,proving that women can be equally workaholic and dedicated as men.

These are just two of the many cases that have proved that the age old "man works, woman stays at home" philosophy that was prevalent in almost all societies is a thing of the past in the modern world. Women have demonstrated that they can be competitive and capable of contributing to a family's income; all of this in addition to taking care of their families. Isn't it time to rethink who actually takes on several roles effectively then?

Here is a video of a debate that discusses the differences in the roles of men and women in the corporate sector:

Arabs and Working Women

Women were and will always be the other half of the society that we all live in. different societies have different ways of treating women, and most of the time it is not equal. In the Middle East it is a normal thing to see men working and women staying home with the kids. The notion of mothers should stay home and raise their kids to be the “best” was stated by many families. While having a normal conversation with a friend of mine, I pulled out a question “Do you think women should go out and work or stay home and raise the kids?” That was her response:

Although this answer makes since to many of us, women hate to stay at home. They feel that their life is surrounded by kids, cleaning, washing and all the boring home duties. Whereas the man goes out, work, travel and have a business lunch. Women want to take a break from the home duties and go out to explore what this world has to offer for them. If the women is out working who is going to take care of the kids? The maid? Why would someone leave her/his kid with someone who is only supposed to do is taking care of the house? Well the answer would be that women want to explore the life outside the house, and that is why some parents who both work keep their kids in a nursery school if the kids were young.

In sociology, the breadwinner system means that the man goes out to work and the wife stays home with the kids. This been the system for Arabs for a long time, and it will, from my perspective, continue for the next few decades. The man will always be the man of the house. The breadwinner system varies from a social class to another. For example, women from the high middle class are not supposed to work because they have enough money that the man gets. On the other hand, women from the working class or the low middle class might not have enough money to support the family. Therefore, the women also work to support their husbands to provide the best support for their kids.

As an Arab, I think women should be given the chance to go outside and work, but work should not conflict with their other duties to their husbands and kids.

“No. This is the WOMAN of the house!”

People are social creatures. It means we depend on others to tell us what to do, what is right and what is wrong. As much as we deny it, we like rules. We create them to follow them and let others follow them so we can have a sense of security and stability. Rules can be made in the form of law or just “common sense.” What is socially acceptable or what society thinks is normal plays an important role in our lives as it shapes our behavior and attitude towards things.

Media plays a big role in conveying these ideals and making us believe that they are the norm. These things can range from stereotypes about certain races, messed up standards of beauty and representations of family dynamics.

Here in the Middle East, everything is about family. We live with our families and only leave when we create a new family of our own (and sometimes we don’t leave then). We go on vacations with family, eat with family, work in family businesses, achieve things to make our family proud and most importantly, the end goal of every single one of us (the bachelors) is to have a family someday. We are slaves to our families to put it simply. It is not really as scary as it sounds, but it would be really weird if we all have the same end goal.

I guess the reason why things go down this way is because of the culture and dominant religion. People must not have relationships outside of marriage (not that this stopped anybody). Once people get married, they should start thinking about their legacy and stuff, so yeah, kids are a yes yes if you can have them. And then of course, there is nothing really else for you to do than work to please your family for the rest of your life.

However, we all know that things in real life aren’t that boring. We all really have different lifestyles and a lot of us youngsters are not even thinking about having a family. Yes, we are one selfish generation. But the truth is, we just tasted freedom now. With the rising levels of education, people, especially women, are becoming more and more independent. Right now, all we’re thinking about is how we want to finish our education, get a good job and spend money on spoiling ourselves. Nobody said anything about finding a hubby or raising babies.

The point is, there is a possibility that the breadwinner system is going to change. The breadwinner system is a tradition where the husband works and earns income to support the entire nuclear family. Women are getting good education now. There are greater chances for better jobs and more income. They will be soon providing for the family and they will have more power. Of course, I’m talking right now like I’m from the 50s and this does not already happen. But we all know it does and it is becoming the norm. People used to get married at the age of 13 a while ago. Can you believe that?! Now, there are a lot of people in their 30s who are enjoying the single life. I was interested in what other people my age think about the breadwinner system and if they believe it will always be that way. So I asked them:

I was also interested in knowing what they think about the media’s representations of family in this region. You see, once you turn on the TV and watch an Arabic soap opera all you see is love affairs, family, kids, families, divorce, love affairs… you get the point. Arab people love drama but they always have the same old story. Daddy and mommy have kids. One of the kids wants to get married to this person that daddy and mommy don’t approve of because they already hooked them up in an arranged marriage. Kid elopes with lover. Daddy kills kid. Daddy also secretly loves his secretary or something. Parents get a divorce. Kid’s lover dies in some freak accident. Seriously, it’s like they use this template for every single show!

Anyways, what I cannot find is representations of another type of family. A family where mommy is dealing with midlife crisis and working her way through the second shift. The second shift are the jobs that working wives do to run the household after they finish the workday. Why can’t they be single mothers raising their children? That’s drama right there. Why can’t it be that the father doesn't have a job and the mother has to raise him too since he won’t do anything around the house? But what if he does help around the house? What if he likes to cook and clean? What if there is no mother? What if they were two dads instead? Too many questions and only one answer: Because it is weird, it is wrong and it is not normal.

I personally think that things will change around here. Maybe not soon, but, eventually. Student films are already being made representing different kinds of families and tackling these sensitive topics. So perhaps one day we can turn on the TV and watch Youssef take care of the twins while his wife, Sara, cures her patients.

Family Roles in Doha

 During my last Cinema & Society class, we had a conversation on family and family roles, and we had the chance to express our thoughts and opinions. For this blog, I will discuss that matter and go into detail as to how it applies to our culture in Doha and the Arabian Gulf in general.

Traditionally and since we can ever remember, men’s job was to provide financial support for the family, hence their name “breadwinners”. Women, on the other hand, were responsible for taking care of the house, the kids, and ensuring it all went well. This is how women earned the name “homemakers”. All this goes back to our existing views and ideas about gender and who we believe is supposed to do what. 

          
The way all this applies to Doha is that during the last century and for the most part, men and women both assumed their traditional family roles, with men being the “breadwinners” and women being the “homemakers”. However, contrary to popular belief, men and women have mostly been breadwinners and homemakers simply because we decided to arrange things in such a way, not because it is the right and only way to go.

 Nowadays in Doha and in the Gulf, the number of working women has increased. Sometimes, this is the case because the “bread” earned by the father isn’t enough to cover for all the expenses and financial needs of the family. At other times, this is because of another relatively recent phenomenon, which is that nowadays more and more women are taking more interest in completing an undergraduate study after completing high school. By going to work and earning their own money, they feel more powerful and worth more than if they just stayed at home and took care of the kids. Although I am a personal believer in that some things women do at home, such as taking care of their children, are of great importance, the reason they and most of society do not see it this way is because, as David Grazian said in his book Mix It Up, “non-economic activity is devalued in today’s modern capitalist society”. Perhaps another reason that would cause a woman to go to work in this part of the world is if her children have all grown up, and so she basically has nothing to do at home and decides to go work to spend her time doing something useful.   

Before ending this blog, I decided to conclude with a few useful tips for those of you who are already married or do plan to get married someday. First, Grazian mentions a study that observed that women’s stress levels go down when their husbands help them with the housework. Grazian also stated that another study concluded that women who work are happier than those who are homemakers, which might make you re-think letting your wife go to work. That’s all for today. 

 

Qatari Women: Family life vs. Work

Marriage in Qatar is a serious matter that is intertwined with honor. Women’s place is upheld in the Qatari society by protecting the women’s reputation and thus, protecting the family name.  The common ideology that was circled around in Qatar, until very recently, was that a woman must marry in order to fulfill her role in the society, and her role in leading a normal life.

Women’s role becomes institutionalized with in the nuclear family. A Qatari woman who wants to become successful has to prove herself successful in a family life before she is considered to be successful at work.

Women in Qatar have to take on the role of establishing a family and taking care of it. Any shortness in fulfilling that role means that something is wrong with the woman. Qatari women can never be breadwinners in the society, as the man has to provide for everything. Breadwinner is a term that describes the tradition of the man figure providing for his family. If the woman works then that’s her prerogative and she may choose to deal with her income however she’d like. She can spend it on her children or herself, but the children have to be living a well-provided life from the father’s income.  

Women take on the role of a working individual in order tofill their time. That in itself is seen as an accomplishment as instead of sitting home alone, women choose to fill their time by doing work. However, first and for most the work they do can be interrupted by any of a working mother’s children’s demands. If the child calls his mother to pick him up from school early, the mother has to dismiss her work and pick up her child. Therefor, Qatari women are on a constant working shift, from their real work hours to the second shift they have at home running the household.

The video I’m sharing for this blog is a statement about a happy Qatari woman. Analyzing it shows that there’s no husband in the picture, only kids. However, including kids indicates the presence of a husband at some point. The short film couldn’t have been done with out showing the complete life of the woman. The woman’s life is complete by having a perfect house life, indicated by the happiness of her children, and a perfect workspace.

Product Placement in the Arabic Music Industry

Product placement is advertising through non-traditional ways, especially by appearing in different cultural products of the media such as films, Television series, ...etc. In Hollywood, product placement is most famous for being used in almost every movie nowadays. On the other hand, in the Arab world, product placement in films is not a technique that is used as much. However, product placement has been highly associated with Arabic music industry for years. Product placement in the music industry has proved to be highly effective to the point that Rotana, one of the leading production companies in the Middle East, requires any singer that signs a contract with them to include product placement in his/her music video. Here are some examples for product placement in Arabic Music videos.  

Sony Xperia in Elissa's latest music video for her song "Ajmal Wahde"

Infiniti car in Elissa's latest music video for her song "Ajmal Wahde"

 

LG phone in Nawal Al Zoghbi's music video for her song "Aghla Al Habayeb"

It is also very common that certain companies would sign endorsement deals with famous singers or actors. For years, the most obvious endorsement deals were Coca-Cola's and Pepsi's deals with various super stars such as, Amr Diab, Nancy Ajram, Haifa Wahbi, Carol Smaha, Tamer Hosny, Cairokee, and many others. These deals end up in the production of different cultural products such as: programs, music videos, and films. All of these cultural products end up being an extended advertisement for these companies.

   

Coca-Cola's logo, cans, and red color all over Nancy Ajram's music video of her song
"Oul Tani Keda"

However, Coca-cola's presence in Nancy's music video isn't as ridiculous as Pepsi's campaign, as they produced an entire film and made sure they colored it blue. Bahr Al Nojoum or Sea of Stars is the name of the musical that Pepsi co-produced. Bahr Al Nojoum is the first Arabic promotional feature film. With no proper storyline, a lot of famous superstars, Pepsi made sure their logo would be on screen as long as possible. Here's a short clip from the film.

 

On the other hand, Coca-cola was smart enough to bring it's program, Coke Studio to the Middle East. A program they first launched in Brazil, then took to Pakistan, India, and lastly the Arab world. Coke Studio focuses on mixing two completely different genres of music in one song. The program puts more effort in presenting the audience with good music than rubbing Coca-Cola's logo in their faces. It's definitely a program that includes product placement, however, it respects it's audience way more than Pepsi's musical. Here's an example.

   

What on earth is a Harlem Shake?

This is a question that has appeared on my Twitter and Facebook timeline more than 10 times by different people throughout the past two weeks. “It’s the new Gangam Style!” said one of my friends.

These days, it’s hard to predict what will be a “hit” and what will be a “miss.” According to David Grazian in his book Mix It Up (2010), “The convergence of media content across platforms promises the development of exciting and dynamic new forms of cultural production.” Since achieving success in today’s mass media market is unpredictable, media industries base their decision making on strategies to minimize risk and financial loss. However, famous artists and prominent production labels are now faced with the problem that consumers themselves participate in the coproduction of their own media experience.

Although the strategies used by media firms to minimize risk were shown to be successful in many cases, today’s generation of consumers form a threat to those strategies considering that today’s consumers are also co-producers of pop-culture. According to Grazina (2010), “It is exceedingly uncommon for the media industries to promote cultural products that do not cleave to common types of genre conventions or stylistic boundaries.” However, if we observe the popularity of the Harlem Shake from a sociological perspective, it’s noticeable that it stimulates from the fact that it’s easily reproduced among ordinary consumers. Therefore, the success of a cultural product these days doesn’t necessary depend on the distribution or strategies held by prominent media corporations, instead, it’s now determined by the active participation of the audience in co-producing their own pop-culture and the widespread of popular fades among regular consumers.

The Internet meme culture has gained attention over the past couple of years and the Harlem Shake is considered a subset of this Internet meme culture. Although unexpected, the popularity achieved by the Harlem Shake has caused it to become one of the most popular trends of the year. However, Internet memes could also be considered a strategy for risk reduction since it has been used as a marketing technique and it has proven to be effective in achieving marketable success. Following this popular trend, on February 21^st Northwestern University in Qatar participated in the Harlem Shake trend.