Day #5 – The Topic of the Middle Eastern Female

What we perceive is at times wrong. What seems unjustifiable to some people works for others.

Our last day in Abu Dhabi was a very interesting day for me. Aside from the visit to the third largest mosque in the world and seeing the grand structure dedicated to prayer, witnessing the beauty of the architecture and not to mention trying to get over the shock of the world's largest chandelier worth about $30 million, eating on the floor for the first time while sharing a meal by hand out of a huge bowl maybe two feet in diameter filled with rice, goat meat, and chicken that was very delicious, and getting henna, another preconceived notion was dispelled.

One of the questions I had – more so a concern – before traveling to the UAE was how was I, a western female, going to survive in the middle east. We were told to wear modest clothing and was not required to “cover up”. Prior to my journey to the UAE, I read up online about what was generally accepted traditions and culturally sensitive practices I should adhere to when in the middle east.

Females do not generally shake hands with males and vice versa.
Females wear a cloth to cover their heads and at times faces.

Prior to leaving Guam, almost everyone had questioned how my being a female was going to work on this exchange. For some reason or the other, the thought of being a female in the middle east brought thoughts of segregation, oppression, and inequality to my family, friends, and acquaintances. The speculation of the media, the covert hype by Hollywood, and the uneducated hypothesis of others have left these individuals handicapped when it came to the truth of the topic of females in the middle east.

I cannot necessarily speak about females in the other middle eastern countries, but in the UAE the opposite of the thoughts above is the case. We visited Abu Dhabi University which shocked the hell out of me. I have never experienced a segregated campus. The thought of segregation, especially in an institution of higher education was not sitting well with me. As a student of political science, public administration, and law, thoughts of segregation brings me back to the famous Brown v. Board case. On the bus ride over, the thoughts as we listened to our hosts describe that we will be seeing both the male and female campuses could not settle in my mind. I could not fathom how this was a possibility, yet it was all so real as soon as our bus drove onto the campus of ADU.

We had dropped of three of our female Emirati counterparts to the front of the gate because they would not follow us on a tour of the male side of the campus. Quietly observing, I noticed that it was not of an issue for them. They happily walked off the bus, quite insistent on the fact that they wanted to get off the bus. We were then escorted through the campus filled with only males students; the only females were the instructors and campus employees.

The campus looked just like any ordinary college campus; rooms filled with desks, a board for the instructor to write on, the regular typical classroom scene. We spent a few minutes in their shelf-barren library. Interested, I looked through the titles of the books on the selves; I noticed that the books were mainly geared toward computers, technical matters, engineering, how to speak “good English”. What freaked me out even more was when we were told that the library time was divided between females and males. As you can tell, this came as a big shock to me.

After few presentations of the University affairs, we were taken outside and greeted by very good weather and a feast, Emirati style. People filled the green grass waiting for our arrival to offer us food, juices, good conversations, and a band playing traditional music. Although overwhelmed by what greeted me, I made my way through the crowd and met with the three female Emirati counterparts that left the bus earlier. In true Emirati hospitality, they forced a plate into my hands and insisted that I eat right away and try all the delicacies they had prepared for us.

In between stuffing my face with delicious food and getting henna for the first time, I made conversations with the females in the tent who sat with us to eat. There was a female tent and a male tent, and though Trumans were at times transitioning between the two, none of the Emiratis were violating this practice. Although I had generally accepted that it was part of their culture to separate the males from the females, I still couldn't believe what I was witnessing. What I discovered was a very surprising and possibly mind-boggling thought. Females did not care that they were segregated from the males. It was something they were used to, and though they understood that it would be and is a shock to most people in the western world, they did not see anything wrong with it.

Spending time with our female counterparts proved that these females were anything but submissive and oppressed. They were educated and were able to formulate opinions for themselves. They were critical about their government leaders and practices and showed no fear in speaking against injustices. They had ambition and a passionate drive to make themselves better for their families, for their country, and most importantly for themselves. And yet, they were fine with the whole concept of segregation.

For over half a century, Americans struggled with the idea of “separate but equal”, as conceptualized by our Supreme Court in the Plessy decision, and fought to shatter the division between whites and colored in education and daily life. The difference between the two cases is that the voices of the colored in our case were censored and stifled. In the UAE, this does not apply because the women themselves agree to have such segregation. They attribute this to hundreds of years of traditions and their respect for their culture. The voices of the females are not censored and are definitely not stifled. Though I am still struggling over this concept that I am not used to, I have to respect that this is their way of life, and if females in their country accept such, I am not one to push for change that is not wanted.

We need to fight the battles that need to be fought ... especially ones that oppress the voices of any group of individuals. But we must remember not to fight the ones that do not need fighting.

Interestingly, I ended the day with a stroll with some Trumans on a Ladies and Families Only Beach and ate some McDonald's before heading back to the hotel for one last night in Abu Dhabi.