Patriarchy in the MENA region
Growing up in the patriarchy in the MENA region
THP’s ME and UK Correspondent Jasmine Laws interviewed Sana Afouaiz on patriarchy in the Middle Eastern region to cover 5 different aspect of this global issue. Here Sana explains what it was like to grow up in the MENA region:
“In the MENA region, patriarchy hits you in the face. I doubt that any woman or young girl hasn’t experienced patriarchy, and it starts from home: in the family, in the society, in school. Somehow, it becomes a normal kind of thing for a lot of young women out there; it's the belief that that's the norm, and that it should not be questioned or examined. Every day for me is about confronting this reality, I grew up in a quite a big family with only sisters, and society treated us differently . I was always reminded that I don’t have a brother, and that we don't have a man in the family to carry the family name and honour the family: women are considered to be a kind of a burden on the family's shoulders, and the ultimate goal for parents is to marry their daughters off one by one. This is limiting determination of the future of women makes women believe they are cursed just because they are woman.”
“I had a friend who was really quite smart, but because of the mindset of where she grew up, she had to give up on her education and her professional dreams in order to get married and have kids. Getting married and having kids should be a normal thing for people to do, not an objective or a trophy for women. This led me to question the mindset and recognise something was wrong, even though I was too young at the time to understand what feminism was. By reading feminism in books, it helped me to shape my thoughts and actually have a concrete plan for my actions, which I am very thankful for. I was inspired by different feminists including: Fatima El Mernissi, Nawal El Saadawi, Huda Sha’arawi, Doria Shafik and Simone de Beauvoir. All of them helped me understand why feminism is important and why every woman should be part of this movement, even if they don't believe in feminism as an ideology, they should believe in women’s empowerment and that each one of them can do something to stop the misogyny. As the cultural mindset in the region in so many ways has been shaped and maintained by women themselves.”
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Sana’s Novel – an echo of the voices of suffering women
THP ME and UK Correspondent Jasmine Laws interviewed Sana Afouaiz on patriarchy in the Middle Eastern region to cover 5 different aspect of this global issue. Here Sana explains the inspiration for her novel ‘Invisible Women in the Middle East’ and why its message is so important.
“I wrote the novel to call for a revolution of mindsets and perception, to call everyone in the region to examine the way we see women and treat women. The book tell real stories of real women that I was fortunate enough to live with them while learning about their stories. I had no intention to write the book, I was just spontaneously traveling and exploring women’s realities in the Arab Muslim World, till I met one young woman who asked me to share her story so other women realise that they can free themselves from the invisible prison.
I really wanted the book to be received by women from the region themselves, to tell them ‘I hear you; I see you; there are a lot of women who are going through the same thing as yourself’. In Sudan, I interviewed a young woman, who told me about her experience of genital mutilation, and how her father held her legs alongside her mom’s while the midwife was purifying her virginity to make sure she was pure for her future husband. She lives with anxiety and traumatism everyday, but that didn’t stop her from forcing her young nine years old daughter to undergo the same pain. This is when the abused become the abuser. I was shocked and tried my best to stop her by reminding her that she had been through the same thing. But she told me “tradition is tradition”. Women consume this mindset, and believe that it should be respected or else they would be destroying the values of their society - and that's very, very sad.
“My mum was also always an inspiration for me every day. When I was young, I had a lot of questions to ask, but because of my environment I couldn't ask questions, yet, my mum was patient enough to answer my questions. My mom needed a friend; someone she could trust to tell her stories to, and she assumed I couldn't understand what she said, feeling that I was safe to speak to about everything she had in her mind and heart. Her stories helped me in my reflection about women's rights. She also insisted that I needed to be free from that environment; she wanted me to free myself from the life she had had. She always insisted that I need to do well in school and graduate and work – she thought that working would be the tool for me to free myself. This was the powerful message that she shared with me, and this alongside the trust she placed in me, is the fruit of my work today.”
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Recognising the cause of Patriarchy in MENA countries
THP ME and UK Correspondent Jasmine Laws interviewed Sana Afouaiz on patriarchy in the Middle Eastern region to cover 5 different aspect of this global issue. Here Sana elaborates on the foundational causes of patriarchy and its presence in MENA countries.
“Misogyny is a global issue, and we have a long road before we reach a global equality. In the West there is legal framework that protects women’s rights (depending on the country, some laws are very questionable), but in the MENA region the legislation is discriminatory. In Saudi Arabia, a woman can drive but still needs male permission to renew a passport or ID.”
“In Syria was quite a conservative country, where women actually were not allowed to perform certain professions, but after the Arab Spring, a lot of men were killed or joined ISIS, or crossed the Mediterranean Sea to live in Europe, so a lot of women were left in Syria, and needed to feed their families, so they started performing professions they were once not allowed to perform. Economic situation and poverty change the norms and the differences between men and women; the main focus for a lot of people is to survive, whether that means it is a woman or a man at work. But this doesn't mean that a woman is working because it's her right - it's because there is a necessity; people need to survive.”
Patriarchy comes from levels, not only the culture. The region has experienced so many different political and economic situations, from post colonization, independence and rebuilding states, economy crises, and then extreme poverty that led to Arab Spring. The Arab Spring, gave birth to several movements aiming to rebuild new societies, and peaceful revolutions as in recent movements in Sudan and Algeria. All of this has impacted the situation for women. As Simone de Beauvoir has said, we need a religious, economic, political crisis for women's rights to be re-questioned again, these rights are never acquired. I think there is nothing that could express it better than this quote. The fact that women could gain some rights, and then lose them just because of economic or political crisis shows the need to change. It's the mixture of all of these elements, in addition to the different ideologies in the culture and heavy emphasis extreme religious beliefs that pulls down women's rights.”
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Religion and Culture – a catalyst for patriarchy?
THP ME and UK Correspondent Jasmine Laws interviewed Sana Afouaiz on patriarchy in the Middle Eastern region to cover 5 different aspect of this global issue. Here Sana explains the link between patriarchy and religion, and how this makes it a hard issue to solve.
“When I worked on a project in Qatar, I was wearing what I would wear in Morocco, or anywhere, and I was called a whore by a local woman because I was not dressed in a ‘conservative’ way. There is this view that when you are from “Arab World”, means that would be treated exactly like any other local “Arab woman” although I’m not Arab myself but Amazighi. That woman felt she had to remind me that I should be conservative and respect the culture. But for the expat woman who was with me in my group, who was wearing a skirt that was more revealing, didn’t get any lesson from the “preaching woman” because the expat woman didn’t come from the Arab culture, meaning the cultural conditions and rules don't apply on her.
I think it's very important that there is a political will to put women's rights in the front line of the national agendas to have a woman with a feminist thinking advocating about bringing about women's rights. There is also a need to work with religious people as well – a Friday prayer mentioning woman’s rights would change mindsets as religion has a strong power over these societies. We need to start advocating for a woman's rights in religious places.
We need a culture of debate, of discussion about the taboos surrounding women’s issues and discussion about the uncomfortable topics.
“I think it's very important that if you want to advance women's rights in the region, you need to work with women and men, and the young and old."
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