Last Saturday our family driver came down with a full-blown bout of chicken pox. Less than 24 hours later, I contracted a case of acute colitis, most likely caused by the downing of a spicy Indian curry on a stomach floating with some unresolved issues.
Now, for those who are not familiar with the effects of a colitis attack, it is akin to being flattened by a 25-pound sledgehammer powered by someone with the bulk of a Schwarzenegger in the area between the navel and the groin. It hurts if you walk, it hurts if you sit, and it keeps on hurting while you try to sleep. As a matter of fact, it just hurts all the time.
So here we were. A household with two totally incapacitated male drivers, a 10-year-old boy whose social calendar during the last days of a summer vacation was on the rise — a means I assume of soothing those young nerves before opening day at school — and a wife who had errands to do.
Living in a quiet neighborhood with taxis a rare sight and public transportation for women and children atrocious at best, I resigned myself to some eventful days ahead. Thank God, we had stocked up on groceries and essentials for a couple of days.
Now I could have drawn on a multitude of resources for assistance. Family and friends would gladly have provided the driving support for these trying times. But I detest inconveniencing others if I can help it. And I realize that most people have their own errands to run and do not usually keep people on their payroll for such outside emergencies. They have their own lives, for heaven’s sakes.
And then I start wondering why my wife, a licensed motorist who has been navigating the freeways of California since she was sixteen, could not use her skills during such dire straits. “Its religion,” some may say. Balderdash, I reply. Whose religion? Because mine has placed no such limitations on women.
“It’s the culture,” others might add. Bull-feathers to that one too. Whose culture? Some individuals who have persuaded segments of our society into believing such nonsense? Is it not simply some kind of a control mechanism over the lives of women, ignoring the hardships imposed upon them, and often their spouses, by such mores?
“It’s our society. It will just not accept it,” is another lame excuse. Well, force them, I say! Just as motorists were forced to accept the seat-belt laws, so could motorists be forced to behave appropriately if they spotted women drivers. You don’t hear of such problems in the rest of the Arab world.
The times demand such mobility, and not just in cases limited to mine. Diminishing economics today mean that not everybody can afford to employ someone to do a job that they could do themselves.
Meanwhile I medicate myself into silence.
- Arab News Opinion 6 September 2003
