Confessions of a First Semester Freshman.

The ideal scenario for people who are fortunate enough to receive an education requires the completion of different stages in their educational journey, from the early years of kindergarten to the more challenging years of higher education. The more levels students complete, the better their chances are at getting a good job or a high salary. School is unquestionably a leading agent of socialization. Our years spent in educational institutions aim to shape us into well-rounded, well-informed individuals who can contribute positively to society in the future. We also learn certain life-skills that aren’t particularly outlined in an official syllabus but are just as important. This “hidden curriculum” demonstrates abilities such as interacting with other people from diverse backgrounds, building up our competitive nature in order to prevail in the real world and also teaching us the importance of discipline, timeliness and self-control. However, transitioning from stage to stage of an educational journey can be just as challenging as it is rewarding.

In high school, students are introduced to tracking systems in order to get the most out of the subjects they excel in. In university however, most classes are a mixture of students, from freshmen to seniors, all at different levels of their university careers. Another difference is the actual workday. Unlike the 7-hour-long days in high school, university classes are more lenient when it comes to scheduling, and it’s the time management and discipline skills we learned that help us with adjusting to that change. Students also become much more independent in college and aren’t “spoon-fed” as much as they were in high school to build up their self-image and character.

I’ll be the first to confess (as several other freshmen would); starting college was probably the most emotional, terrifying and exciting time of our lives so far. Emotional, because of the rapid changes we faced being away from family and friends; terrifying, because of the inevitable amount of stress, work and challenges coming our way; and exciting, because of all the opportunities that await us. With all the change happening though, I’ve realized that although high school is very different from university, it helped ease the transitioning process through both the formal and hidden curriculum.

As my first semester comes to an end, I have to admit it wasn’t the apocalyptic disaster I thought it would be…then again, finals are just around the corner so I probably shouldn’t speak too soon.

Marriages in our World

Arranged marriages (family choose the bride)
- Family choice from along time, when bride and groom where children. They might be related in a way or two families are friends.
- Or they choose the bride whenever the groom wants to get married she can be a cousin relative or anybody.
- Or the family chooses depending on specific things the groom wants in the bride. Ex (physical appearance, or social role, education..etc.)

Certain Choices can be affected sometimes by the family trying to:
- Maintain their social class with choosing the bride from the same class or higher.
- Keep the family name.
- Keep the blood in the same family (tribe point of view)
- Keep certain relationships.



Groom choice but arranged by family:
- Groom knows her (from work, seen her, can be a relative of his choice.. etc.)
He can even just have seen her for once and even never talked to her.
The grooms family proposes and after the acceptance they get engaged and then married.
The family for lots of different reasons can maybe sometimes refuse the groom’s choice. So that can cause a huge conflict with his family.


Self chosen and arranged by the groom:
Can be in reaction to social pressure and society and social constrains on his choice. Sometimes a one wants to get married to girl with different ethnicity, nationality, or religion..etc. So he finds a big rejection from his family and it causes conflicts with his society as well. Social pressure and constrains limits the boundaries of a grooms choices either by tribe or other differences.


Marriage in Islam

Islam on the other hand considers it Haram to force a couple to marry each other. It advises people to get married to people from outside the extended family to avoid negative genetics and other negative affects.


Abu Hurairah related that the Prophet said: “Men choose women for four reasons: for their money, for their rank, for their beauty and for their religion, but marry one who is religious and you will succeed” (Bukhari, Muslim).
This of course, applies to women as well.

Gender and our society

A society labels all male and female individuals according to their genders. It is the way of classifying and separating the males and females in terms of dressing, in terms of behavior, in terms of their respective roles and responsibilities. An individual cannot define his/her gender by himself/herself; the society mostly establishes a gender from their perspective. Most of the communities perceive gender differently. However, gendering people plays an important role in publicizing community organization. Due to globalization and tremendous growth of technologies, the roles of these two separate genders started mixing up. Even though this has not been so prominent, women and men have proven that they can perform each other’s role perfectly without any strain. Is gender today necessary for the society’s organization?

Does it limit our skills and talents? Now days mostly women play the roles of breadwinners in our society. This wasn’t possible in the past because the society made sure that a woman gets married to a man who would take care of her and would support her for family needs. Gendering has always been a part of human culture. Since like culture, the gender roles are so dynamic that keeps on changing from time to time. Gendering takes place soon after birth and all the children are designated according to their particular genders. After the birth of a child, girls and boys are treated accordingly with clear differences in the type of clothes that they wear, the kind of games that they play and also both of them have different behaviors.

The activities carried out by men and women may indeed be genetic and also their behavior may differ according to their genes. For example, biologically it is proven that men are more aggressive than women because of the hormones that are produced in their bodies. The aggressive behavior is common in almost every species but it differs with sex. For example, Crime rates are usually higher in men than in women. But boys usually display a lower level of aggressiveness as compares to girls. Does the genetics really influence the genders? Studies have shown that, if the levels of testosterone between the two sexes in animals are reversed then the aggressive behavior is also influenced.



There are some clear things that we notice like male children usually play with toy guns and violent toys but on the other hand, female girls play with dolls and soft toys. Some of the homely tasks like washing dishes can be done by both the genders but usually females more commonly do this task.



The society today, has failed to promote gender equality. Why is it that even after the developmental measures of equal rights, there are clear discrepancies on the gender roles of the community? Why is it that when people try to cross the gender lines, they are always seen as deviants in our society because they hold a small position in our society?

On the other hand, our society is successfully ensuring that the community is organized along gender lines and that gender cannot be compared to sex. Every individual accepts gender because gender promotes similarity. Living a life in a normal way and by accepting the social norms, these people do not conflict with the society. Every individual wants to be identified with the society. The good thing about gendering people is that is creates recognizable roles, rights and responsibilities to the different sexes making it easy for society organization. Anyhow, gender creates social stratification in our male dominated society that places men above women. We can find many examples and issues like employment, education etc. Girls and boys can be different and at the same time equal in terms of respect. Today living in this world of modernization the society has still not changed when it comes to a task that men can do and women cannot.

Ageism in the media

You need look no further than in the fashion and lifestyle magazines and on the TV to see that people of a certain age, especially women, are seriously under-represented. Ageism is showing itself in all of areas of global culture from films, music, advertising, fashion and even in the news. There is no denying that popular culture is rooted in youth and energy and that is reflected in all our media.

Alarmingly, advertising and films tend to promote images of older persons in a negative light – as helpless, bumbling, and forgetful – in a stereotype described jokingly as “senior moments”.

Many Hollywood actresses have drawn attention to the fact that once they have past 40, there are less and less roles for them in movies. Female newsreaders will more often than not be “put out to pasture” as they get older and begin to show signs of aging while their male counterparts continue in the industry despite greying hair and facial lines.

As a result of this, women have been pushed to resort to face and body enhancements to accommodate the relentless demand for all things young and youthful. The extent of this demand has resulted in girls as young as 12 and 13 advertising beauty, perfume and fashion products as representative of the “ideal woman” and one women “would most like to look like”. The media has continued to be a willing participant promoting these impossible ideals.

Social Obstacles of Qatari Women in Media.

In the modern world lots of Arab women is working in the media (read, audible and visual) but emergence of women in the media of the functional areas is still difficult to a large group of Qatari women especially acting.

The most important social obstacles that considered as a barrier to enter the girl's country the media, in the social aspect of these constraints was the negative perception of the work of Qatari women in the media and that the customs and traditions still play a key role in establishing the image of women traditional society in the era of globalization and contemporary culture, In addition to the lack of entrepreneurship at the country girl to break into the media work.

The vast majority of women in Qatar have no desire to entrepreneurship into the media work due to the anxiety and fear in all its forms, including criticism of the community for her, in addition to that family upbringing play a big role in the creation of a generation that limited under customs, traditions and Islamic regulations.

The society sees that the women in our time consumed as a commodity to promote things and the media exploit her female body for the same goal, or they use the femininity to spread of immorality.Most of the plays and dramas depict a female as the object, which is suffering from problems. These problems caused by either a mother, wife or daughter and this means that the regular women's core are the cause of misfortunes, and the solution of such problems in these dramas is the rebel female on these roles and responsibilities. They calls for women to rebellion, and reduce the value of the housewife.

The right of the viewer to see a female model in the media, but according to the viewer right they pick a beautiful model and put her under a beauty pressure which is difficult to follow and that may lead to increase family disintegration. When the media exposure the female always been exhilarating and stylish appearance,and in the pompous decoration and beautiful clothes is achieved, this may lead to the reluctance of husbands to their wives who may not able to access many of them to the same degree of female beauty media. Hence, the problems occur between spouses, the husband feels that he is not satisfied with the level of the beauty of his wife.

Now a days the society began to change and seek to raise awareness of the cultural community, and get rid of the obstacles set by the phantom of the women themselves; which prevents them from thinking on the subject of media in earnest and strengthen the role of women media.

Happy national day UAE

In this day UAE celebrates their 40th national day with many festivals. They celebrate this with drawing on their face decorations and their cars, music and poems. They dress up and perform the youlah. Not only do they celebrate, Qatar also joins the celebrations by doing a 'masera' (cruising around Doha city together with flags) highlighting their happiness and joy. One of our famous local radio channels (sout al khaleej) dedicated a whole day just for UAE. Even the people in Doha are all celebrating the event by putting a status and profile picture to resemble the unity between Qatar and UAE. This conveys socialization between the two cultures.

 UAE was first colonized by the British, and gained independence in 1971. They are 7 emirates with one leader, sheik Khalifa Bin Zayid. Even though sheikh Zayid passed away, people of the UAE still relive his existence, as he was the one who changed the country. 
Both our culture are similar, however theirs a slight difference in accents. Also in the old days, we both had the same currency. Our clothing’s are similar; the males wear the traditional ‘thoub’ and the female wear the traditional ‘abaya’. We share the same norms. Our societies developed in a wider range. We are both more globalized countries but we still hold on to our past and celebrate every year. 
  

Differences in cultural sexism

In Qatar, the locals can be categorized in practicing a recognized common ethnicity: for example, they share similar religious beliefs, the Arabic language, the style of clothing among many other things. In the Middle East some aspects of this ethnicity are shared, especially the language and religious beliefs. Many of the similarities between Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries are dissolving and forgotten as Qatar becomes more open to Western countries. Assimilation happens in Qatar because of this openness to the Western world, which involves exchanging cultures, beliefs and blending, thus forming the new Qatar into a new cultural system.

Rights of the genders are a debatable issue. In the earlier days, men and women were having different rights in the Gulf region, which resulted in the segregation of the sexes. In the 20th century, with modernization, Qatar witnessed a social mobility, which enabled both the genders to begin to have similar rights and were considered equal. Women in Qatar now have the same rights as men, in relation to work, vote, study, and drive. However, there are still some inequalities between male and female in the Arab world. In Qatari culture the men are responsible and are the ones who take control in hard situations. Also, men having more freedom: go out and stay up late without having to give excuses; while, women having less freedom, have to ask permission if they would do anything.

Clothing is another area that is more controversial for women than for men. Actually, the Qur’an (the Holy book of the Muslims) says the genders are equal and does not require women to cover their faces. Islam does not promote sexism (Parker, par.2). However, interpretations of Islam differ on the clothing of women, especially concerning the hijab. For example, when I went to Saudi Arabia four years ago, I went to some shopping mall, and I was shocked that everyone was looking at me. Finally, one woman came to me and said, “Cover your face!” I was wearing an Abaya and head covering (Shela) because in my Qatari culture it is optional if you wear face covering (Niqab) or not, but I was crossing their cultural boundaries by not wearing the Niqab, so I felt awkward and suspicious. As a result, I began to overgeneralize, and to assume that all of the Saudi society was like that. I became prejudiced. On the other hand, they considered me deviant because I was violating their cultural expectations.

Here’s one of my personal experiences of the deviation of the ethnicity among the various countries in the Gulf region itself. My relatives who live in Saudi Arabia were wearing the black cloves; head Abaya (a one-piece Abaya that covers the head), and Niqab. They are different, and their culture and gender expectations are different as well. There are huge differences between our freedom and theirs. Saudi girls are supposed to cover their hair and face in early age, where as in Qatar it is optional if you cover them or not. When my relatives came to visit me in Qatar, despite being knowledgeable that women here were allowed to drive, they were shocked because they didn’t realize that many women actually drive. Also, they were impressed by seeing my colored designed Abayas. In their point of view, it is against their culture to wear designed Abayas. One of them told me that it is not good to wear them, because they will be considered attractive to men, but mine was loose and it covered my body, and I didn’t see anything wrong with my Abaya. They also go to single-sex schools and gender-segregated work places. Their culture segregates the sexes, and women don’t have a chance or choice for driving because it is against their government law.

I think the change there will be really hard because people are entrenched in their culture, religious interpretations, and gender expectations. Women there bound themselves from the fear of the society and its pressures. Here are some of the instances where cultural sexism is witnessed. Although the influence of social mobility is embraced in some countries, with time, there are many windows that still need to be created and opened in the more conservative countries, especially in the Gulf.



Works Cited:
Parker, Kim. “Women, Islam, and hijab: Emory university. Fall 1996. Web 30 Nov. 2011.