Pink Yemen Taxi

Taxi in Yemen via Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

In recent years, women-only taxi services offering convenient and safe transit have sprung up in major cities all over the globe. These “pink taxis,” driven by women for women, offer a variety of benefits — not only giving women the option of avoiding harassment by male drivers, but also offer employment opportunities, business ownership, and in some cases, empowered transit in funky, candy pink rides decked out with lady magazines, beauty kits, and alarm buttons.

In Beirut, they’re styled as fierce competition to the standard transit system, brought about by one woman’s entrepreneurial vision, and follows similar models set up in Dubai, Cairo and Tehran. In Kuwait and London they’re “women-run businesses” offering “secure modes of transit” helping female customers feel less vulnerable when riding alone with a male driver. Moscow’s taxis are all about girl power, while Mexico City’s pink taxis are fantastically “girly” while helping address the problem of leering male drivers. But Yemen? Yemen doesn’t have a women-only taxi service and that’s because Yemen is too tribal and slow to change, to even consider allowing women to drive taxis.

Well, that’s according to a recent article by Radio Netherlands Worldwide. While initially promising (and Fugees inspiring), the title completely mislead me into thinking a new, pink revolution had already hit the streets of Sana’a: ”Pink taxis for Yemen: ready or not.” Apparently, not.

It didn’t take long to realize the point of the article was not to celebrate a new social and entrepreneurial opportunity for women — but to use the absence of pink taxis as a social commentary, highlighting gender segregation and the restriction of women’s employment due to “tribal tradition.”

The article leads by over-emphasizing Yemen’s culture of gender segregation. “Men and women practically lead separate lives,” with segregated weddings, women-only Internet cafes, and asks, “if so many places have separate facilities for women, then why are there no women-only taxis?” It’s a fair enough question. Taking a taxi with a male driver is awkward for many women and while not every male driver is a predator, there are many documented cases of sexual harassment by taxi drivers in Yemen. So in a country that is so obviously divided upon gender lines, why hasn’t segregation entered into the transportation sector?

(more…)

 

hope for international day of the girl

After becoming a parent, my life and perception of the world changed in ways I could not imagine.

I worry now — a lot more than I did before. When I’m not praying that my daughters will grow up to be strong, confident women, I’m begging that (if they choose to marry) they’ll find someone who will respect them, care for them, walk with them — and will never, ever lay an abusive hand on them.

I’m more suspicious now. While it’s pleasing to be told that my daughters are adorable, I’m wary when others comment that they’ll be “gorgeous” when they grow up. It’s impossible for me not to suspect that their tiny bodies are being sexually appraised. It’s even more jarring when a stranger touches my babies. Smiles and a “how-do-ya-do” are friendly. But intimate pats and tickles can reek of insidious, evil intent.

I have daymares. Driving the girls for the first time by myself will result in a car accident (it didn’t). Having our breakfast on the balcony will result in a terrible accident (unlikely). Someone will hurt them (insha’Allah, no). A fire, fall, crash, earthquake, meteor, tsunami, [insert irrational fear] will strike them down. My stomach clenches painfully when I think there may be a time when I cannot protect them.

The plight of other children now affects me emotionally. News stories of parents losing their children to abusive partners, senseless accidents, orphans, child hunger leave me sobbing, spurs me to action, but also makes me hold onto my girls tighter and with more fervent prayers for protection.

The idea that someone or something could whisk them away from me is my greatest fear.

So it is impossible for me, on the International Day of the Girl – a day about promoting gender equality and celebrating girls lives and opportunities across the globe — not to mark the work and bright life of Malala Yousufzai.

 

how many hijab pins does it take to be pious?

I was standing in my closet, tears rolling down my face, a pile of clothes at my feet when I admitted something I thought would never come out of my mouth: I HATE hijab.

Moments earlier I was pouting and stomping around the apartment — feeling frumpy and ridiculously hot in a winter sweater. The Hubby, sensing that something was wrong, asked why on earth I was dressed for the second ice age when it was a balmy 30C outside. When I groaned that it was the only thing that fit my postpartum body, was breastfeeding accessible, AND comfortable enough to wear with the baby in a sling, he took me by the hand and proceeded to go through all of my clothes.

Unfortunately, the Hubby could not have known that a torrent of hormones and insecurities let loose by baby-blues and a negative body image was bubbling up inside me, just waiting for an excuse to explode.

He handed me a black nursing top: Too tight. It’s not hijabi enough.
A long blouse: I.am.too.FAT now. It won’t close over my chest.
My favourite cap-sleeve patterned shirt: I can’t! I have to wear a long sleeve shirt underneath to hijabify it — and then it won’t be breastfeeding accessible!

That’s when I stamped my feet and erupted into tears. It was a full-on adult tantrum — and I took all of my frustrations out on hijab.

 

remembering the body police

Pieces of tobacco sat bitterly on the tip of my tongue. I looked down at my shaking hand to see that the filter of my cigarette was broken and hanging by a sliver of paper – and it dawned on me that I must have taken a drag after I fell. That’s when I saw the new rough patches along the cuffs of my black leather jacket and the pieces of gravel sticking into my bleeding palms.

I fell. But was I pushed? Kicked? Hit? Yes, I was hit with enough force to throw me to the pavement. My hands shot out to brace myself against the impact – but the seconds before were a blank slate. I couldn’t remember. All I knew was that I was lying face down in a parking lot staring at a broken cigarette.

 

dreaming of eryn’s sermon

There’s no compulsion in religion and God has sent a message to everyone – so there’s no reason to find faults in the beliefs of others. Think about what you’re saying and how your words will be understood. How they can offend or mislead. Take fasting for example. If you say that we only go out to eat when the sun goes down… people are going to think we’re a bunch of vampires.

I never laughed so hard at Friday prayers. The imam was jovial, frequently engaging the women in constructive dialogue during his upbeat pre-sermon talk – which was easy, since we were literally only a few feet away from the minbar. We were in an “open concept” mosque, where women and men shared the same prayer space. It was segregated, but arranged so we could all pray side-by-side. A runner divided the room in half, giving space for people to move in-between the rows without disrupting the sermon or prayer.

Eryn and I chose to pray close to the Hubby instead of joining our friends at the back of the room, where two wings off to each side of the main prayer space provide privacy for both men and women who want seclusion. I’ve prayed in the wings once before and liked how they were built with shaded glass at the front – giving people a clear view of the imam and the main hall. I didn’t feel separated from the congregation at all – especially when I used the microphone for people to ask questions.

Now that Eryn is old enough to pray, we both prefer to be at the front near the Hubby so we can worship together. As a family.

 

prayer in public school

Caption from the TorStar: "At Valley Park Middle School, Muslim students participate in the Friday prayer service. Menstruating girls, at the very back, do not take part."

At what point does religious inclusion become too much for a public school board to handle? Apparently it’s when the menstrual cycles of 12-year-old girls become the centre of public debate.

Every week for the past three years, Valley Park Middle School in Toronto has held official Jumm’ah prayers in the cafeteria. For many Muslims, the Friday service, complete with sermon and congregational prayer, is obligatory. Others believe that it’s optional for women to attend, that it’s not compulsory for anyone, or that if men skip three Jumm’ah prayers in a row, it’s a sign they’ve lost their faith. Like many issues in the Muslim community, there’s a wide variety of opinion and practice – but many agree that Friday prayers is vital to the faith and identity of Muslims worldwide.

In schools throughout Ontario, Muslim students have organised themselves into unofficial, cohesive communities – fasting together during Ramadan, praying in groups at the library during their breaks, planning ‘Eid parties, skipping class to fix hijabs, gossiping in the bathroom and creating religious-fellowship student clubs.

The solution to provide full religious services for students was agreed upon by parents, stakeholders and the school administration to address the needs of the school’s large Muslim population – which apparently makes up over 80% of the total student population. (source)

Previously, large groups of students would sign themselves out, walk to a nearby mosque to attend Jumm’ah prayers, missing hours of instructional time by hanging out with their friends after services instead of returning to school. Some didn’t even bother going to the mosque – Friday prayers were used by some as an excuse to skip. When parents approached the school with worries and safety concerns that their children were missing classes, they all agreed to allow an imam to come into the school and hold prayers on school property. Keeping the kids supervised and minimising lost instructional time.

The program was a success, with about 400 students out of 1,200 (about 30% of the Muslim students) regularly attending prayers. Each week, community volunteers come into the school and help set up the cafeteria as a makeshift mosque. Clean sheets are laid down, tables create a barrier to maintain gender segregation, and an adult community leader acts as an imam to lead the students in a sermon and prayer. For 30-45 minutes, while other students finish their lunch period and start afternoon classes, Muslim students have the option of fulfilling a religious duty.

But last week the Toronto District School Board became embroiled in controversy, when a coalition including the Canadian Hindu Advocacy, Jewish Defense League (Canada) and the Muslim Canadian Congress announced their opposition to the school’s prayer service. Arguments against the program naturally hold firm to the idea that publicly funded schools should not facilitate religious services – not during official class hours, and certainly not by an outside religious leader who provides unsupervised and unmonitored sermons in Arabic. (*gasp*)

But what’s really got everyone’s hijab in a bunch is the menstruating children.

Oh, won’t someone please think of the menstruating children?

 

memories of gender segregation

“What do you mean we have to sit at the back?”

I stared incredulously at the mosque representative. About 10 men already sat on the bus waiting for an organized student trip to Montreal – and they were occupying the front seats. A group of six women were standing in the cold waiting for my standoff to end.

I argued that we had mixed classes together, that this was a social trip, that the bus was secular ground, that there was no religious reason why we had to be segregated on a bus, and asked why the women were being forced to the back. I was told that despite the trip being social, we should always maintain proper Islamic decorum, that I wasn’t being culturally sensitive to the needs of the bothers who were accustomed to gender segregated spaces, and that they would feel more comfortable not staring at women for the 4 hour trip. “And what about us? Do you think we want to be staring at you?”

He wasn’t going to budge. The least I was able to negotiate was to get all of the men to disembark first so we could get on the bus without having to brush their knees as we passed. I was furious.

Sex segregation in the mosque made sense to me when I first converted. I was interested in learning about my new religion, and was not necessarily on the lookout for social inequities. I probably wouldn’t have been able to see them anyway, since I was still the starry-eyed new convert, and often celebrated the great rights and status that Islam affords women, over recognizing that things weren’t often practiced in the same way.

I did eventually start questioning more frequently when men and women also had to sit in different sections during lecture series, during community dinners, and even during movie nights at the mosque – but the reasons I was given seemed to make sense, so I didn’t argue further. Often I was told that Islam curtails interactions between the sexes to help decrease the chances that an unrelated man and woman would be left alone together. Also, that it discouraged physical touching between potential marriageable partners – which could lead one to temptation and the eventual transgression of pre/extra-marital sex.

Then when I put on the hijab, I accepted an even stricter understanding of the rules of engagement between the sexes, and self imposed a manner of speaking and acting I thought was expected of the truly pious. I avoided looking at men, rarely spoke to men directly, and if I did it was with downcast eyes and with a firm, no-nonsense tone of voice. I let men walk in front of me and stopped shaking hands. I cut off ties to many of my non-Muslim male friends and stopped frivolous, non-work related conversations with my Muslim male friends. My actions were applauded by many in the community, and like-minded sisters used me as an example of a model Muslim at women only events. Together we arrogantly argued that western modes of interaction were shameful — and the pain of socially isolating ourselves seemed to be worth whatever spiritual gains we were receiving for acting in the appropriate “Islamic” fashion.

My tipping point came almost a year later, when I saw a leader within the conservative community chatting up a non-Muslim female student. He looked her directly in the eyes, smiled, joked, laughed, and even touched her elbow. While the last time he spoke with me, for an event planning meeting at the mosque, he did so through a barrier. We never had interactions outside of the barrier, and if we passed each other on the street, he would look beyond me, never acknowledging my existence.

 

not an ugly boy or man

I’ve spoken previously about my experience with token whiteness, but this takes the cake:

This is taken from a newspaper in Qatar.  I found it just after I heard that Kuwaiti firms hire white, tall, “good looking” people specifically to shake the hands of dignitaries, consultants and clients.

Any takers?  Not sure what constitutes a lady these days though.

 

don’t help the help

Here’s a hat tip to blue milk, who clued me into a great discussion regarding the nuances of husbands “helping” with the housework, versus just plain owning it.  My Hubby owns a few chores around the house, because there is no way I’m touching: his bathroom, the vacuuming, ironing, cleaning the outside windows. They are his.  He can keep them.  Go ahead, have fun and do them whenever you feel like it.

When I ask for help though with the ambiguous chores  (not the ones that I own like laundry, dusting or cooking, or baby related chores, because he’s really good at that bit), we both get grumpy and argue until we’re blue in the face.   Said chore is FINALLY done with some tantrumming thrown in for good measure.

But I’ve been thinking recently about housework as a source of power.

My ire goes straight through the roof when Hubby touches the laundry.  It’s mine.  You’re going to mess it up.  You’re going to ruin my clothes or shrink the baby’s clothes.  Please… put the detergent down.

But what does that say about my role in the gender politics of housework?  We’re equal partners in this, and yet I have difficulty letting go of my control and feel like I’ve lost power within our dynamic as a working couple when Hubby does the bloody laundry.

I’ve learned to let go of the same power struggle when my mom comes over to care for Eryn.  At first I’d hover over each diaper change and bath.  She was doing it wrong, too slow, without gusto, too much gusto, too much overstimulation, not enough Vaseline.  But once when I budged her out of the way to finish a change when Eryn was having a complete meltdown, I recognized that I was being an overprotective, controlling mom and that I should let Omi have her share of poopy.

Recently, my family’s house maid has asked me to stop helping her.

At first I thought she was just being all, “oh K, you’re on vaccation.  Relax. I can do that for you.”  But now I realize it’s more, “no really. Stop it. This is MY JOB and I own it. I actually enjoy doing it.  I like the family I’m with and don’t want to mess that up.  You might do it wrong, which will be noticed and blammed on me.  Your help might illustrate that I’m really not needed, which will screw me out of a job, and I NEED to send this money home to my mother and my 9 year old son. Your help is not helping.  Leave it.”

She didn’t quite say that, as there’s a language barrier.  It was more like, “K! No.  I do.  Leave it.”  Said again, and again.  Once intensely with a hushed voice and piercing eyes.

I got the message.

I’m just not used to being waited upon hand and foot, and now that Eryn is here with us, tearing the house apart that wouldn’t normally be destroyed and throwing food that wouldn’t normally be thrown and peeing on beds that aren’t normally peed upon, I just thought it was nice for me to clean up a bit after my 10 month old.

It’s no big deal for me to make the bed (it actually makes me feel complete in the morning. Like brushing teeth.  Teeth are clean, bed is made, all is well in the world even if Cheerios exploded in the kitchen), it’s no big deal to rinse out Eryn’s jammies, it’s no big deal to wipe the floor after a meal.

Perhaps in some first world misappropriation of a third world reality, she doesn’t need my help and my help hinders.   This is a paid task.  She has been hired to own the housework.  Her duties have been laid out by the family and according to their tastes and expectations.

But at the same time, her power and territory is IN the housework.  It’s knowing the dirty laundry of the family (literally).  If there were something going on, she’d be the first to know about it.  Her power is in preparring the food and sir’s tea, perhaps better than madam can prepare it.  Her power is expressed by how she has organized the house and in anticipating the needs of her family.  Her power is in knowing that she is needed by this family and when she goes home for a month, it all falls apart.  Her power is illustrated when madam cannot run the house without her.  Her power has made her a valued member of this family, even if she is simply hired to do the housework.

 

veiled constellations

Tomorrow Eryn and I are going to her second conference! Veiled Constellations is intended to:

problematize the prevailing discourses surrounding the veil while exploring its subversive potential.

Ooooh… how I love subversion. But I do! Subversion challenges the “norm” and forces it to critically analyze itself. We wouldn’t have law if we didn’t have crazy “heretics” running around subverting normative standards and forcing the “orthodoxy” into creating protective laws. And it’s a little fun.. like blowing a great, big, fat raspberry in the face of whatever pisses you off, puts you down or holds you back.

For example, in French and Turkish universities, it’s been reported that muslim women who veil,  subvert the anti-hijab laws by wearing wigs on top of their hijabs, or simply shave their heads in protest.