Tag: women

You ain't got these moves

After a very stressful week and promises to myself as well as my close friends that I would not touch my email all weekend (despite not having a Blackberry, I often am ‘that girl’ these days on my Nokia if there is wireless internet available), I tried to pull together some modicum of energy to meet some social obligations I felt less than ready for.

Despite being four months pregnant, I managed to squeeze my growing belly into not one but two different dresses this weekend, first for a former student’s wedding and second for a friend’s graduation party. In the ex-pat community in Qatar it is an honor to be invited to a wedding – well in all societies a wedding invite is a treat – but here especially where there can be limited interaction between people of various ethnic groups and particularly since women’s gatherings are private domain where people literally let down their hair otherwise coiled beneath headscarves at work, the gym, or mall.

I’ve been to weddings before and confess to dreading them because often the invitation comes from a friend or relative of the bride. So you don’t know her, but find yourself in a room with hundreds of other women made up to rival any Hollywood movie premier, waiting for the bride’s arrival which is often hours past the start of the reception.

In this, Qatari and western weddings are similar: people waiting for the guest of honor, waiting to eat, in short, all dressed up and waiting. The first time you go to a wedding, this waiting is filled with nothing short of ogling because this may be the first time you see so much female flesh amongst the abaya clad set that normally perambulates as dark figures with hints of color on sleeves and headscarves on the streets and malls of the Gulf. I was no less guilty my first visit to a wedding (published as an article in Melusine literary magazine, http://tinyurl.com/cgzk5e).

Because women are so nondescript in public, the western is often shocked at the contrast in public where strapless, midriff, or skin tight are the norm. It’s the constant inability to understand what other cultures find instinctual: there is a division between public and private and no one feels the pressure to prove anything to those who aren’t in both spheres. After all, opposite of individualistic cultures, the importance isn’t on the life lived outside the home, but the one and the relationships connected to the home. As a young South Asian girl growing up in the U.S., I may no have worn an abaya but I certainly couldn’t compete with my American friends when it came to shorts, bathing suits, or prom dresses (when I was allowed to go to the occasions that necessitated any of these items).

For Qatari brides, they have some of the same restrictions of South Asian brides: even after they enter, it is unseemly to smile, dance, or in general be happy. With my students and friends I’ve had endless talks about how this particular tradition is wearisome and against what they would actually want to do. But they are bound to do the smile-less  fifteen minute minuet to the raised platform on the other end of the room because if they don’t, people will talk.

Every time we watch our wedding video with anyone (or ourselves) I see the same conflict on my face as my parents bring me down the aisle: I enter looking down, the exact opposite of all the Hollywood scenes; then my true personality must have kicked in because I dart up and give a smile to those who are nearest me – then the head goes back down. I hadn’t worn a veil but maybe I should have because it would have given me a traditional look in keeping with my demure downcast lashes.

Then imagine my joy on Friday night when the bride came in, doing the minuet walk to the other end of the room, and then broke out into a red-lipsticked-diva smile on her way to the waiting dais! After about twenty minutes of photos and videotaping, she came down and danced with us. I was very tired by this point having exceeded my normal bedtime by about two hours but when she approached me and extended her hand, I twirled. She said something I couldn’t hear because of the loud music.
“What?” I asked, leaning in close.

“Shway, shway,” she said, giving me dance advice.

Now I’m not sure if my new belly was throwing off my groove, but my whole life – admittedly lived amongst mostly white friends – I have been the one with the rhythm. Not so, apparently, that night amongst the mostly twenty something Arab girls crowding the dance floor.

The next night saw me as one of four people on time to a graduation party.

The foreigners are the only ones here I text to a Qatari friend who was on her way and we thought we were being fashionably late by showing up thirty minutes past the advertised time on the invitation.

The music this evening was pure khaleeji, or Gulf, not the Arab pop of Egypt or Lebanon. Most of the women in attendance were Qatari and you could tell when there was a popular hit – the dance floor would be crowded with women of all ages, shapes, and styles. This wasn’t the belly shaking of the night before – or the booty shaking of American dance floors. This was measured two stepping that took the dancers across the floor in parallel lines, the focus on their legs and footwork, with some graceful hand movements every once in a while. If someone was particularly inspired, she didn’t wait for partners, she just took to the middle of the room and danced – all by herself, under the weight of the eyes of the onlookers. I had nothing on these women – particularly not this group of women who not only knew these songs but clearly loved them – and was content to watch. This time it wasn’t with my ‘year one of arrival’ stares at their dress, or make up, or hair. It was in admiration for how they celebrated their creativity and sensuousness, not needing men or vulgar lyrics to aid them.

After a twenty minute stop for dinner which began at 10:30 p.m. the music roared up again as I said my goodbyes and slipped out. It was midnight when I got home, an hour I had not seen on the clock since the second month of pregnancy.

Parties and weddings are much better when you know the women who are at the center of attention – whether in Qatar or India or America. I’m so glad that after five years of living here, I can say that I do.  I knew things were changing because not only did I know the bride/graduate directly but I also didn’t feel ‘sad’ when the women left the room and put their abayas back on. I waited as one of my friends, resplendent in an orange gown, matching shoes, shawl, and plunging neckline with yards and yards of hair, wrapped up and we went down to meet her husband. Normally when people leave these things or the groom shows up at the end, expats exclaim at the change that comes over the room as it goes back to black.

Since I started wearing an abaya to the office last month (on days when I can’t get it together otherwise) I supposed this transformation wasn’t as stark to me. I know what’s underneath: beauty, power, grace. It isn’t because we’re ugly that we wear it. It’s actually the opposite. We have better things to focus on when out in public or at the workplace. And when we are at home, we shine.

Who will help you with your coat on?

For a long time I faced this question myself: should I settle for the nearest man in my life or should I pursue my dreams? Being a South Asian the customary reaction from friends and family was a sidelong glance any time I came home announcing my latest plans. A look that said, "Okay, but then what?"

I thought ethnic women were the only ones to succumb to this pressure or to be constantly inundated by it but it turns that Western women are no less liberated. In fact, in some ways, the lack of frank discussion about the pressure for white women to marry and live the fairy tale of happily ever after makes it harder on them than the ethnic philosophy of marry and the love will come.

Two conversations last week brought this to the light.

A friend, a good, dear friend, in a relationship that she herself confesses not to have the ultimate confidence in, said "And if I want to have kids, I don’t have much longer." This out of the mouth of a 31 one year old.

Implied lesson: I’m not going to get what I want so let me get on with the kids and family bit.

Then on the flight from Qatar to the U.S. I (admittedly observed on television) heard a similar refrain watching the British mini series, LOST IN AUSTEN. The main character says to her mom, "I have standards."

And the mother, achingly replies, "Standards are good sweetie but who will help you with your coat on when you are seventy?"

That is the question, I suppose, for all women, white, black, brown or otherwise.

But as I challenged 10 American college age women during a visit to my house over pizza, what does being alone really mean? Are we alone because there is not a man in our lives? 
 

Even on 30 Rock, Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, goes on a date set up by her boss because one night she almost chokes to death while eating a T.V. dinner. So men not only help you in life their mere existence can help prevent your demise?

I’m not a misanthrope. I am happily married to a nurturing husband and the proud sister of a brilliant young business man.

In general though all cultures still seem to be promoting the sexist male privilege. A man at any age is able to father children and get married.

So women of the world unite. We can help each other with our coats while on our various journeys.  Perhaps with a little less pressure we’ll be able to make the choices to be in the places where we will meet Mr. Right.
 

The newest accessory?

Lately it seems that if you are without a child and a woman between the age of 25 – 25 then you’re society’s newest oddity. This is a funny realization because I qualify in this category, but more so because for most of the last seven years I qualified in another equally condemed status: single woman, no prospect on the horizon.

Why does society still think that we women are so strang outside of the house, on our own, without husbands or little hands gripping our skirts?

I understand this mentality in rural places all over the world But among the educated middle class of the rest of the world, why do we insist on putting these traditional expectations on women, but still sending them to school and out into the workforce.

If, as was my case, a woman wants to have these things but hasn’t found the right person and so instead of dropping into a deep depression carries on with her goals and ambitions, why do we make her feel like it isn’t enough until she has that husband? And then suggest that he isn’t happy without little ones?

I am now watching dear friends struggle through the barren landscape of modern dating – juggling the twin pressures of success and romantic expectations for women – it i a scary thing. I am excited for my friends with expanding families. The arrival of the first baby, then the second, the increasingly common navigation of the sadness of miscarriage. This is my role as a friend; to rejoice when she rejoices, to be sad when she is sad. But the chasm seems to widen as discussions of serving sizes, parenting strategies, ‘play dates’ encroaches.

How come we aren’t more supportive of the decisions that each individual woman makes?
Is it true, as my trainer says, that if you don’t have kids, you’re left out?
Why?