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NAIROBI, KENYA - "I love the way they look, walk, sound, talk, think, feel. I love women, make no mistake about it ..." - Rod Amis
Aamena
JiwajiWhat exactly is it about a woman that makes her female*? Is it her physical characteristics, her behaviour or something innate?
Here are two portrayals of women in the media in the last month; what do they say about how society portrays women, how women respond to such portrayals, and whether these portrayals are accurate?
Incident 1: A cricket pitch in Australia with capped figures in white, training. The bowler does a run up, the batsman knocks it into the air ... and a fielder catches it. The fielding team groups around the one who caught the ball, congratulating and cheering. In the celebrations, one of the players' caps fall off and her long hair tumbles out. Women's cricket.
Incident 2: A group of protesters outside a church in America, inside of which a group of Muslims are praying. The chants of the protesters and the enthusiastic touting of the banners is broken by the Azaan ... the Azaan given by a female muezzin. Inside a woman Imam, leads a group of Muslims, both men and women, in prayer. (See the Cairo Magazine story here)
Both these scenarios show how images of strength and dominance in society continue to be stereotypically male and that when a woman challenges our perceptions, she either falls into the trap of becoming "male" (whatever that means) or being shunned by society.
In the first scenario, if it were not for the long hair of one of the players or the flash of a ponytail as the bowler did her run-up, then the fact that the players were women would be unknown. But this is an issue of a social stereotype, that cricket is a gentleman's game and that the role of the woman is to sit under a parasol on the pavilion and sip lemonade, or some such Victorian picture.
Even as a woman viewer, the long hair illicited a surprised reaction from me because I too had been pulled in. But my society-conditioned thoughts railed against my common sense. Why couldn't women be women and play cricket as women, without having their femininity challeng ed, questioned or laughed at?
In scenario 2, my identity as a woman came into conflict with my religion. Islam has very strict rules about the place of a Muslim woman: but these rules, as I see them, and I must emphasise this, are neither discriminatory nor exploitative. In my opinion, wearing the burkha is not an imposition. It is a safety measure, one that I have chosen.
A friend tells me that wearing a burkha or an Islamic cap immediately places the person in a compromised position, depicts them as a stereotype, and forces others to create a first impression based on their appearance as a Muslim and not as a person; a judgment made on their outsides and not their insides.
But how many first impressions are created by a person's insides?
What of a woman in leadership?
I am okay with a woman holding a position of leadership in society. I am okay with a woman President in Bangladesh. My boss is a woman, and she has a talent that allows her to do what none of the men in the organization could, a quality which I think stems directly from the fact that she is a woman.
And positions of leadership within Islamic practices, such as leading prayer? No. I cannot support what Amina Wadud, the female Imam, did.
It sounds hypocritical, and I am still struggling to make sense of it. Probably another symptom of my social conditioning, in this instance, religion-based, and more difficult to overcome.
So what makes a woman today? Is it the role she is given to play by society, the role that she fights to etch out despite society's allocation, or is it something that is created despite all outside influence? The age-old nature-nurture argument.
That is a question that each woman would have to answer independently. More than most, women fight generalizations.
My answer?
I just did try the fight.
* (AUTHOR'S NOTE: I use the words "woman" and "female" deliberately; femininity is a social construct and regardless of whether a woman fits into the mould of being fem[inine], she is a woman.)
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