Who doesn't know Amina from the famous novel by Najib Mahfouz; Qasr El Shoq? This great novel talks about the life of an Egyptian family during occupation years. It tells the story of a tough man "Sayed Ahmad" who was ruling his household with great cruelty and force; Amina was his wife.
We saw how this powerful feared man used to live two separate lives with two completely different women. First woman was his simple wife, Amina. She obeyed him or one can say that she worshipped him, taking everything he says as an order that she must follow religiously. She never ate in front of him, instead; she stood beside the table waiting for his instructions. She never looked at him when he gave her the orders; she kept her eyes on the ground. Going out of the house was out of the question; she was only allowed to visit her mother with previous permission from him. She dedicated her time to keep him happy and made sure that he has everything he needed at any point of time.
Second woman was the famous artist and belly dancer Zbaida. She was quite the opposite of Amina; she was the naughty playful female, who makes a living from entertaining men. She was the mistress of this powerful man; he lived with her a secret life full of fantasies and wild nights. He led these two lives separately and made sure that they did not mix in any way.
Mahfouz gave us two extreme representations of women in the Arab World, moreover; he showed us how the same man treated this extremely different to because of the double standards that the Arab man was drowning in at that time.
This story took place in the thirties, but I can't help but think that nothing much has changed ever since. We still have Amina's and Zbaida's and the double standards still rule to date.
A couple of days ago, I posted about this issue and got very interesting comments from my dear readers. Some blamed women of the Arab World on men's double standard attitude, some blamed men and the rest blamed both. Reading the comments on that post made me think of this great work of Mahfouz's; it made me think of the huge inheritance that reached us from our great grandfathers and grandmothers, and I can't help but believe that each Arab man has "Si El Sayyed" inside him and each Arab woman has both "Amina" and "Zbaida" inside her struggling for one of them to emerge to the surface and dominate the other.
Moderate women of today have somewhat gained control over their Amina, however; more often than not; when Si El Sayyed emerges to the surface in their men; Amina takes over and becomes in control. It perplexes me how men in our Arab World live the two personalities and master their roles with an Oscar performance.
We witness many examples of the double standards in our community and we don’t know when or how this will end. One guy goes out with girls, loves them and become loved by them, takes them out and gets them gifts. With his girlfriend; he is Romeo, showers her with love words and makes sure she is always happy. Same guy goes home and bullies his sisters, orders them around, never shows them any love or respect and dare one of them get herself a boyfriend and practice the same rights her brother gave to himself or the community gave to him because he is a guy. If she is discovered; hell breaks loose and she can lose her life in the process because her honorable brother could not handle the shame she brought upon him and the family.
Our community gives men the right to do whatever they like and the lame explanation is that they are men and they will not be affected by these relationships. Just because it does not have any apparent effects on a man to lose virginity or get pregnant, God forbid, the community gives him a green light to indulge in taboo things that are not even allowed to be discussed. What makes things worse is that when he is discovered; no one looks at it as a shameful thing; rather it becomes a need and men have needs, right?
Same community forces reasonable and unreasonable restraints on girls suppressing them and depriving them from their freedom to choose. We see girls resorting to lying and going around the rules to practice their rights in life.
Before I get accused of encouraging girls to have forbidden relationships; let me make it clear that not all girls in our society are after this particular right; believe it or not; we think in a complete different manner than men. What is the core issue of this post is the deprivation of the right to choose, and the right to live a normal life that is free from lies and fear. Why can't men accept the women in their families are humans and have the right to choose the way they want to live? Why don’t they encourage them to lead their lives freely and in the open where they can supervise and give advice? Why do they force them to resort to lying and deceiving them?
Women bare a large part of the responsibility in this situation; she is the one raising the man and teaching him how to deal with women starting from home. If she teaches him that his sisters have feelings and should not act as his servants just because they are girls, he will start having a deep respect to the woman as a woman. If the father respects his wife and gives her a special rank in the family; children will grow to understand that this is a partnership and that it is not a master – slave relationship where the woman is the slave for the mere fact that she is a woman. So, for all the mothers and fathers out there; stop treating your sons as Gods and your daughters as slaves, instead; treat them as humans who are equal regardless of gender so that they would have deep respect to each other.
In past times; women did not go out of their housed to work side by side with the man, she did not have to participate in providing for the household, she did not have to be a super woman who divides herself between rules of working woman, wife, mother and housekeeper. She did not have to struggle 24/7 to raise her kids and teach them right from wrong. She did not have to be the prime bread provider for the house in many cases, and yet what shocks me is that men still insist to be treated as masters, they still want to be kings of the house.
Bottom line is that some women have evolved and grown, they know their rights and more importantly know how to get them, they no longer accept to be slaves and they chose to kill Amina once and for all, they got rid of the fear and they are honest with themselves and their surroundings. The question is; are men afraid of such women? Do they choose Amina over this woman or does he find pleasure in transforming this woman into Amina using his authority given to him by God and community? What is it with you guys that makes you scared of giving women some freedom and empower them to take their own decisions?
I wish that as many guys participate in this discussion to help us all understand what they want.
said:
said:
from Jordan