There is a media guy I know. He works in radio and he likes the ladies. He fancies himself some kind of champion for women’s causes.
Above all, though, he loves to have his photograph taken with the ladies. And by ladies, I mean anyone in an abaya. We have the strict, buttoned-up girls, the girls with open abayas, girls with tightly held hijabs and the ones with the loose hijabs. Boy, this guy loves them all.
As each new generation of women learn, Saudi society is made up of men. Somehow Saudi Arabia has determined that women don’t really figure into the Kingdom’s future unless there’s a man to guide us. What would Saudi women do without a stranger to protect us from ourselves?
So I look at this media guy’s website full of pictures of himself with his lady friends and wonder just when will he lay his expertise on the female condition on us — the wanton, the ignorant and the hapless woman.
Sure enough this guy decides to start a campaign to rid Saudi Arabia of the “trash of society.” And by trash, he is talking about the young girls who frequent malls and have the audacity to walk around with loose hijabs and open abayas. He wants each and every female to have a mahram to keep them all decent. Or maybe he wants to be their mahram. Or maybe he wants to set up a booth at the malls and require girls to pass inspection. Apparently, he can hang around and have his photo taken with every female in Jeddah, but when those same women walk through the mall in the same outfits, he blows a gasket.
My media friend typifies the daily harassment — yes, harassment — Saudi women feel when they leave the house. The double standard of individuals who don’t mind flirting with girls or compromising with them by publishing their photos on a social media website, but then harangue them for failing to meet his standards of modesty.
I know another Saudi guy who prides himself of being a mahram for his sisters. He is pretty ruthless about the whole thing. He goes through their mobile contact numbers, eavesdrops on their conversations and yanks them out of the family car from time to time when he felt they were up to no good. Never mind that he has no evidence of any wrongdoing.
This same guy spent a year in England attending language school, but also spent a lot of time nightclubbing. When he once spotted a Saudi girl at the same club, he looked at her as if he had to wipe something off the bottom of his shoe. He completely missed the irony of being in the same place and doing the same thing as the girl. But his thinking was he had the right to do as he pleased because of his gender.
This is the crux of a major problem in Saudi society. Men do as they please and women are punished for enjoying what little freedom they have. Mr. Media Guy wants a campaign to shame young women to adhere to his idea of modesty. He makes no distinction between girls and women. He also ignores the fact that young women at malls are more than likely with their families who set the standards for their daughters, sisters and wives.
I admire today’s young generation of women willing to challenge boundaries and forge their own path toward the future. It’s not for me to judge 14- and 15-year-old girls, who eventually will grow up with a set of ideals different from what they have today.
Much has changed for Saudi women in the past decade. We are bolder and more independent than ever before. We don’t shrink from wearing makeup and the latest fashions, even if those fashions are limited in public to abayas. We now have salesgirls in every mall willing and eager to help us find what we need. Is any of this important in the big picture?
Yes, it is. Women are granted rights in Islam and the extent of those rights are often determined at the family level. Those rights should not be determined by Mr. Media Guy or abused by Mr. Nightclub Guy. There has been discussion among the Haia of backing off issues of modesty and focusing more on protection of women against blackmailers. They have moved in the right direction as our society continues to evolve in the 21st century. But Mr. Media Guy hopes to implement a more sophisticated version of the vigilantes who roam the malls implementing their own brand of justice.
There is no room in today’s society for individuals to take it upon themselves to act as my guardian. There is no room for people who insist on branding me a harlot because the way I choose to wear my clothes. And there is certainly no room for people to establish and then enforce vigilante law on people who are simply minding their own business, but fail to meet someone else’s unrealistic standards of propriety.
I, and only I, will stand before Allah on the Day of Judgment and answer for my sins. I have no desire to stand before anybody else, least of all Mr. Media Guy.
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