History cannot remain masculine

Women are mostly kept out of history books, and if they are marvellous enough to have made it into them their images most likely did not 

History is a past retold, a series of events that have been documented by those who have witnessed their occurrence. It is human nature to write of that which interests us, of facts that are deemed essential at the time of inscription and that is why history as is documented, is as much an interpretation, as it is a collection of facts. The names and events that have made it into history books have changed the world one way or the other, their existence and our knowledge of it is essential, but what of those names that were never uttered by history teachers, are their world-altering actions erased? Or do their trials and tribulations factor into the shaping of the future whether they are remembered or not?

If we casually flick through the history books we are most likely to see pages filled with iconic figures that have left their imprint on the world, most of which are men. Great and not-so-great men have both maimed and healed our world simultaneously and from their experiences we have much to learn. Even those of us who are not prolific in politics, sports or technology are instantaneously able to recognise an image of such men as Che Guevara, Maradona and Steve Jobs. Though just as it may be, to have such figures made iconic and embraced by pop-culture how many of those faces we see on posters, T-shirts and spray-painted on walls are of women? Does that mean that throughout history no woman has ever been iconic enough? Or is it that the telling of her story was not deemed essential to those documenting at the time of inscription? No female face would be so widely and easily identified except maybe those of whom who made it to the silver screen. Could you point out Florence Nightingale in a series of photos like you would Marilyn Monroe? Would you know the great Fatima al-Fihri’s contribution to the world just as you would Umm Kulthum’s?

Throughout the world and specifically throughout the Middle-Eastern one, much to do with women is concealed. Women are mostly kept out of history books, and if they are marvellous enough to have made it into them their images most likely did not. This makes it impossible for people to know of them and for those searching for them it makes for an absolutely exhausting task, in turn their accomplishments and impact on the world are rendered obsolete and the chance of people learning from them non-existent. Just as is the way of the world, change is inevitable and for women’s struggle with history, change is coming. 

Recently Muslim women have become more visible than they ever were, standing up to oppression and advocating the plight of minorities around the world. In a visual world where icons are required their images have helped immortalise their work. Malala Yousafzai’s survival and perseverance has become a representation of all women facing the horrors of extremism and the plight for female education. Young girls today have forces such as seventeen-year-old Ahed Tamimi, whose brave defiance in the face of Zionist settlers landed her in prison, catapulting her to icon-status for resistance against occupation around the world. Women have become revolutionary icons, Iranian Neda Agha-Soltan, a student, who died from a fatal shot to the head during protests in Tehran has become a symbol of an entire revolution. Along with Egypt’s Ghada Kamal Abdul Khaleq, known to the Western press as the Girl in the Blue Bra and affectionately dubbed Sitt el Banat (Leader of the Girls) in Egypt, whose image being dragged half-naked by police has become a source of artistic representation of oppression. 

During the Women’s March against the Trump administration in the United States an image of Munira Ahmed wearing the American flag as a Hijab (headdress) became the representation of American tolerance and pro-immigration ideals. And the latest brave soul who was unfortunately taken too soon is Palestinian Razan Najjar, a twenty-one-year-old paramedic, who spent her days saving the lives of fellow countrymen and women peacefully protesting the Israeli occupation. She was killed in cold blood by an Israeli sniper while attending to the injured, she will forever be a symbol of humanity amidst bloodshed.

Because we have borne witness to those women who have shattered glass ceilings and died for their rights we have the obligation to correct the errors of the past, to not let their work go unnoticed, to broadcast, interview, write and teach about those women who are changing our world. In the near future the images in history will differ and the faces who changed the world would no longer be reserved for the masculine. We always knew history to be a story told by him but the future will have one that is written by her as well.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper 10 June, 2018 http://bit.ly/2JCRplR  
Arabic version of the article appeared on the same day  in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/2McgVg4

2017, The Year of Female Reckoning

As a year comes to a close we tend to look back in reflection at its most memorable moments and although this year had many it remains distinguishable from the rest, for it is not often that we witness a tangible shift in perspective happen in the span of 12 months. 2017 has been the year of female reckoning whose path was paved by the electing of a man with sexual harassment cases filed against him and who was filmed speaking abhorrently about what ‘powerful men’ are allowed to do to women. The election of the 45th President to the land of the free ignited all kinds of protests but none as massive as the Women’s March that took place on January 21st, a day after the presidential oath was sworn, it was the largest single-day protest recorded in US history. 

Like it or not, Trump was the best thing to happen to women’s solidarity since the Suffragettes.

From that moment onwards the world got a sense of something stirring within the female community, suddenly more women began identifying with feminism a word that until recently was viewed as derogatory, and more men were finally recognising that gender-equality is not a demand to be made solely by women, it was a human right everyone should be advocating. The news during 2017 was peppered with issues such as gender-pay gap, violence against women, and sex discrimination in the workplace, terminology that has been deemed unfashionable and lost its potency in the US since the explosion of feminism in the 1970s. We saw the year end with two words and a hashtag placed in front of them that have been retweeted, shared and worn as a badge of honour by women around the world, the hashtag #MeToo, used by women to indicate their exposure to sexual harassment, was in the millions only a few days after the actress Alyssa Milano used it as a call for action against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. No one could predict the number of personal stories from all around the world that came pouring in via this hashtag and all of a sudden it was clear that sexual harassment is a worldwide pandemic that no woman or girl is immune to. The sheer magnitude of the #MeToo hashtag did not allow for any more excuses to be made, no longer was shaming the victim a possibility and brushing off sexual harassment as anything other than the predatory behaviour that it really is, was not a viable option anymore. 

This year saw great names fall and a lifetime of careers extinguished. Power, the one aspiration such men dream of, no longer legitimised their bullying and unwelcome advances. 2017 is the year that redefined what it means to be a ‘man of power’. Time magazine has chosen its person of the year for 2017 to be the ‘Silence Breakers’, the women who spoke out about their abusers, it listed women from different races, professions and age-groups whose voices helped push a stagnant female movement to a point of no return. 

The age-old patriarchy that has enforced its power on women since the dawn of time never changed, it had just assimilated into the new age and camouflaged its way into civil society creeping through the alleyways all the way up to the boardrooms of international conglomerates. It wears many masks and hides behind so many reasons but women recognise it wherever it appears. Girls feel it when they walk to school every day; women are haunted by it in places that are meant to be safe havens. For years women believed that because a man can never truly understand that icky feeling one gets as she is paid an unsolicited compliment or told a sexist joke or worse, that there was no use of trying to explain, that this was just how the world went. But even if it did, it shouldn’t, and there is no better time to change it. The shaming culture that has kept women’s mouths shut for so long is on its way towards extinction for the door to proclamation has been kicked open with the force of a thousand years of restraint and the injustices have been shouted out with the shrill of a thousand years of shamed silence. 

2017 was the year of female reckoning and women have everything to look forward to.

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper 26 December, 2017 http://bit.ly/2C36OFD

Arabic version of the article appeared on the same day in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/2C4E9jw

UAE curriculums must lift the veil off female thinkers

As a young student enthusiastic about literature my school’s curriculum although included great works, it was noticeable to my young mind even then that they were mostly by male authors, poets, and philosophers. Being a young Arab girl the only rare glimpses of female works came in the form of novels by the Bronte sisters and other Western greats, and while I drank every drop of their ink I was mostly left unsatiated and ever yearning for a familiar female voice. For all the genius of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights neither their authors nor their protagonists shared much in common with this young Arab girl, although the cultural restrictions of England’s 1800s might have slightly resembled some of the aspects we as women lived through at the time, neither the political backdrop of my surroundings nor the struggles of my region were reflected in their foreign works, these women had never even felt that distinct burning that only the Arab sun can leave on one’s skin.

I experienced first hand the drought that our school curriculums suffered from when it came to the female mind. It left me searching for it on the stacked shelves of my school library and making the effort to hunt for those names that were not being introduced to me by the system. It is an ongoing search for after the many great female Arab minds that I have read I am still discovering greater ones that somehow I have still not come across. Since then the number of female Arab minds who have contributed generously to the literature, political and philosophical landscape of the region has more than doubled, yet the eager young ears today are still oblivious to these voices.

The UAE has seen impressive, one could even say unimaginable, advancements in all sectors and has cemented its position as a cultural hub for aspiring thinkers, artists and musicians from across the region and beyond. The Emirati woman has been offered opportunities that other women in neighbouring countries can only dream of, worse yet have to fight for, but it is not enough to give the opportunity without cultivating the mind. It is essential for the young generation to not only know that women can do anything they aspire to they must also understand the mindset that brought them there. Let them interpret and critique the ideas that brought about change, teach them to compare the poetry, the language and the stories and arm them with positive female examples that counter the assembly line of clichés the media has to offer.

Impressionable young students must be given true examples of the Arab woman through her own words, and when I say students I do not mean young girls alone for in order to raise a generation that truly believes in gender equality it is the young boys that have to listen first, those boys who will grow up to have female rivals at every stage of their professional careers. In order to foster greater respect for their future interactions as equals at par with each other in every way we must introduce them both to those female thinkers, those female warriors who have fought to create a distinct voice, that voice that emanates from an agony, a sense of injustice and suffocation from years of silence, that no male thinker, no matter how great, can mimic.

 

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper May 29, 2016 http://bit.ly/1NVNw90

Arabic version of this article was published in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1TNzCoG

It’s time for a law against domestic violence in the UAE

From its inception the United Arab Emirates has dedicated all its resources to the betterment of society and the world in need with one mission in mind, to provide people with security, stability and respect for their rights. This is evident from the birth of this great nation and instilled by its founding fathers. The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, a laudable humanitarian and advocate of women’s rights, is famously known to have said: “No matter how many buildings, foundations, schools and hospitals we build, or how many bridges we raise, all these are material entities. The real spirit behind the progress is the human spirit.” 

The UAE has come so far in so little time yet never lost sight of what it values the most, its citizens and the diverse people who have chosen to make it their home. This year, the UN Happiness Report ranked the UAE as the twenty-second happiest nation globally and the first among Arab countries. This does not happen by chance, it happens through the hard work and dedication of governments under the guidance of an enlightened leadership, which cares first and foremost about the human spirit.

The UAE has never witnessed a women’s rights movement simply because since its establishment the government has seen women as equals and therefore placed them at the forefront of all endeavours. The urgency for the inclusion of women was there from the very beginning with women’s education becoming one of the founding fathers’ first and most persistent priorities. Today the Emirati woman is as intrinsic in the country’s fabric as her male counterpart participating at every level of both government and private sectors, with many gaining international recognition for their achievements.

In a young nation such as this one it is understandable, even expected, to find outdated laws and issues that are not yet recognised under the country’s penal codes but domestic violence should not be one of them. There is no law governing domestic violence in the UAE, a fact that is neither acceptable nor emblematic of the country’s stance on human rights in general and specifically women’s rights. Ministry officials have shrugged at questions on the non-existence of such a crucial law citing that there is no legal definition of domestic abuse. This technicality cannot be the reason to dismiss the rising figures of domestic violence incidents where women have had no legal rights to leave their abusive relationships on the grounds of being physically harmed. Officials have also debated cultural issues stating outdated ideas of privacy among a family unit. If a woman fears for her life then she should be able to seek refuge, knowing that the law will preserve her rights if she wishes to remove herself from harm’s way regardless of what other members of her family believe. 

Another excuse given by officials, who I must mention for the sake of this issue, are all men, is that while Western countries may consider some forms of abuse as domestic violence an Arab community could see it as family discipline. I could not make this up if I tried, officials have actually said these excuses out loud and continue to use them to hinder the process of passing this fundamental law. 

Violence is violence and can in no way be misconstrued as discipline under any circumstance cultural or otherwise. If we are to fight discrimination and injustice against women we must start from the home for if a woman cannot be safe in her own house then she cannot be expected to feel safe anywhere.

The figures do not lie, domestic violence is on the rise and the lack of a law to protect women is not acceptable under any excuse. The UAE does not need the United Nations telling it that this is an infringement on human rights because the UAE believes it to be so and must now act to end the procrastination of the matter because the passing of this law reinforces what the UAE truly is, an avid advocate of human rights. 

This article was first published in The Gulf Today newspaper on October 18, 2015.

Arabic version of this article appeared in Al Khaleej newspaper http://bit.ly/1LhB5iL

Don’t be afraid to say the F-word

When French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde was chosen to be the managing director of the IMF no news wire missed out on the words “first woman to head the IMF.” In the many interviews she endured following her recruitment she had to answer questions revolving around her marital life rather than her position and what she intended to do with its power. She was described in an article as a “divorcee with two sons,” a description I have yet to read about a man in any position. Answering yet another question about her gender as an IMF director she said, “I honestly think that there should never be too much testosterone in one room.” How else is a woman who comes from the land of the Republican Motherhood supposed to respond?

It is instances like these that remind us of what feminism allowed us to forget. Still, as women are reaching once unimaginable heights they are haunted by thoughts that question their abilities. At one point in time, women's rights were important, fighting for them was important, gaining them was a must, that point in time has passed. The urgency has slowed down, the priorities have been blurred and the word feminism has developed many faces and lost its way in the crowded world of activism.

The word feminism has become synonymous with the idea of man-hating when in fact it has more to do with women than men. The idea was to become equal to what man has achieved and never to downgrade man's role. This misconception has led to the demise of the word, no longer does any woman want to be labelled a feminist for fear of being accused of hating men.

When asked if she is a feminist the American pop singer Beyoncé Knowles said she didn't feel the need to define what she is. This is coming from a singer who brought us a long list of chart-topping girl power anthems such as Independent Women, Survivor, If I Were a Boy, Single Ladies and Run the World. She is also a volunteer and supporter of the CARE organisation that works to empower women around the world, which makes it all the more baffling that she would fear to be called a feminist.

If there should be a reason for this label to disappear from our vocabulary it must not be because of a negative connotation but because there should not be only a segment of the female race that believes in their rights.

Every woman, hell, every man should be a feminist, that is the only way to render this word obsolete.

Throughout history women have fought for one right after another, right to education and the right to be viewed equally by the scrutinising eyes of the law. They fought so the world would understand that theirs is a global issue, one affecting half the planet's population.

Women thinkers, philosophers and activists like Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath have written extensively on the subject of women's rights believing that only a woman can truly portray the struggle of her race. Books like Woolf's A Room of One's Own and de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, which as far as I'm considered, should be read by men before women, caused an explosion of female enlightenment and gave voice to issues rendered dumb by years of injustice.

Yet as we see less and less women embracing the cause, does that mean we have attained equality and that we no longer need the 'dreaded' feminist?

Equality might have been attained in some parts of the world, yet there are many segments of the world still subjugating women and young girls to all kinds of cruelty and injustice for no other reason than their gender. The irony cannot be escaped when a glass ceiling shatters in one part of the world and a girl is being denied education and forced into marriage in another. This imbalance makes it all the more necessary to speak up for those of us who continue to be silenced by ignorance and fear.

Feminism is not dead. Feminism has altered itself, morphing into a more entertaining entity, in order to survive in a world where it has become easier to digest an issue if it came with its own music video.

For women's rights to exist today the idea of feminism has to be subtly reintroduced back into the world. Therefore, for women's rights to be addressed we must sing about female solidarity instead of rallying for it, and if this generation would rather rename it 'Bootylicious' instead, then so be it.

But no matter what we do, we must not belittle the struggle of superwomen, who championed our rights at times when the idea of such equality was unfathomable. Names like Gloria Steinem and Huda Shaarawi must be taught not forgotten, for without their daily battles the world would not have had a Beyoncé today.

This article was published in The Gulf Today Newspaper on 25th Sep., 2011.