You Ain't Nothing but a Hootchie Mama!

The other day, Ketan and I were circling around for parking at the mall, and spotted a very attractive 20-something Arab woman walking by in a low-cut tight-fitting top and ass-hugging jeans. To highlight the effect of her provocative attire she walked with a hip-swinging strut that would make J-lo proud. Now you don't see this everyday in Bahrain, so it necessitated an appreciative look from us both. Coming from the other direction was another Arab woman, this one around 30-something wearing a full abaya (black robe), black headscarf, and a pair of trendy sunglasses.

The second woman stared up and down at the first one, and though her lips did not move, you could hear what she was thinking clear as a bell… "What a slut."

[FYI, the picture is a stock photo. No, I didn’t take a photo of the woman!]

So you obviously need not be a writer for Vogue to see that there is a definite dichotomy in fashion here in Bahrain between the women who wear trendy, even sexy, western attire, and those that wear the same clothes- but just under an abaya.

This is not the case across the causeway in neighboring Saudi Arabia. It is law in Saudi that women must wear an abaya in public and have at least a headscarf on. Women can be heckled for simply uncovering their faces in public. Even the act of a woman entering a restaurant without the company of a man can invite taunts and insults. [NYT article that covers this here]

Many advocates for traditional clothing argue that these traditions help to protect women from the objectification they face so readily in the west. This argument has some merit, and I believe that for the most part women anywhere in the world should be free to wear whatever types of covering they see fit. The laws in French schools banning headscarves is simple xenophobia under the guise of a separation of Church and State.

Still, there is something about covering someone's face with or without their consent that gives me pause. Humans are wired to connect by looking at someone's face. Why is that you can recognize an acquaintance’s face in a crowd, but might have trouble immediately identifying your baggage from similar items in the carousel at the airport? It's in great part because our brains have an area of circuitry specifically devoted to recognizing faces.

How can you fight the objectification of women by covering the very thing that we use most to recognize our family and loved ones?

If it can even be considered a problem, the laws and social constructs requiring women to be covered are easily the least of a Saudi woman's concerns. It’s common knowledge that Saudi women are not legally permitted to drive in the Kingdom. Some argue that this is not a problem because some women there have stated that they prefer to have men chauffer them around anyway. Well, these women are from the relative elite in the country, who can afford a chauffeur to provide such a service. Others less fortunate are limited in their mobility and ability to contribute to the nation's economy. We’ve heard in the office that the sentiment is beginning to change in regards to women driving in Saudi, but the movement faces many logistical problems. Allowing women drivers will require a separate women police force to police those drivers. A woman cannot be made to show her face to a male officer—making the issuance of a speeding ticket a bit of a problem.

Woman all around the world face serious issues of discrimination and violence. The heart of the problem in Saudi and other parts of the Middle East is two-fold, first, Saudi law clearly institutionalizes the subjugation of women, and this leads to the second factor where public awareness of issues facing women is easily stifled.

In a Saudi court, the testimony of a man is equivalent to that of two women. You can imagine how this might make the prosecution of a rape difficult. It’s easy to guess as to whether the cases of domestic violence and rape in the country are over or under reported.

A senior executive in my company is a Saudi woman. She has over 20 years of professional experience and holds an MBA from a top program. All of this is completely irrelevant to the following facts:

- She cannot leave the country without the signed affirmation of one of her male relatives.
- She cannot check into a hotel in Saudi without a male member of her family.
- When she arrives at the airport in Saudi, she must be picked up by a male relative.
- If she were to go through divorce proceedings she would have to represented by her husband.
- In order to bring her children out of the country, she requires their father’s permission.

In the US many women suffer from diseases such as anorexia that can be greatly attributed to the objectification of women and an unhealthy obsession with body image in our culture. We have rap lyrics like, “You ain’t nothing but a hootchie mama,” and many others that might sound humorous, but in some ways do demean women. We have violent crimes enacted against women like elsewhere in the world. And we have women who face professional discrimination despite stellar work performance. All the criticism I have toward certain countries in the Middle East in regards to women’s rights is with the understanding that the whole world has its work cut out to fight toward ideals of justice and equality.

There are men and women in Saudi Arabia who understand this. The current head of the House of Saud, King Abdullah, has pursued a gradual liberalization in the Kingdom against conservatives in the royal family who are closer aligned to hard line Wahhabi clerics. With over 50 percent of the population under 21 years of age, only time will tell if Saudi's upcoming generation will continue along the gradual path of liberalization set by their leader, or will fall back toward a radicalization that will inspire even more scathing journal entries in the years to come.