{"id":4249,"date":"2009-07-22T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2009-07-22T08:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.org\/?p=4249"},"modified":"2009-07-22T00:00:47","modified_gmt":"2009-07-22T08:00:47","slug":"the-emirates-fights-sexism-by-exploiting-class-based-oppression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/07\/the-emirates-fights-sexism-by-exploiting-class-based-oppression\/","title":{"rendered":"The Emirates Fights Sexism by Exploiting Class-Based Oppression"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Fatemeh already pointed out the obviousness of the title in last week\u2019s Friday Links<\/a>, but Hamida Ghafour\u2019s article \u201cLewd stares distressing for women<\/a>,\u201d published in the U.A.E.\u2019s The National<\/em> newspaper, is worth a closer look.\u00a0 Although it seems to promote resistance to sexism and sexual harassment, it does so in a way that perpetuates \u2013 even strengthens \u2013 discrimination based on class and race.<\/p>\n

For example, take these two paragraphs, towards the beginning of the article:<\/p>\n

Western women are targets, but so are our Arab, Indian, Nepali, Bangladeshi and Pakistani sisters. We are stared at, called names and sometimes assaulted by men. Which is why part of me cheered when Al Bawadi Mall in Al Ain announced earlier this week that labourers had been banned on weekday evenings and weekends following a litany of complaints about harassment.<\/p>\n

The Emirates is the most female-friendly country in the Middle East. The Government\u2019s efforts to encourage women to use public spaces is admirable. The Abu Dhabi beach was quickly divided into two sections last year after women expressed their discomfort at gangs of labourers roaming about and leering. Emirati men are courteous. They never stare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At first, part of me was excited to see that it was men, and not women, being blamed for sexual harassment.\u00a0 After all, how often does that happen?\u00a0 Moreover, how often does it happen (anywhere) that men would be kept out of a certain space so that women can feel safe, rather than just telling women to avoid it?\u00a0 Or that a government realizes that women\u2019s discomfort in public spaces is even an issue worth addressing?<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t even have time to finish thinking those thoughts before I realized that it was \u201clabourers,\u201d and not \u201cmen,\u201d being blamed for sexual harassment.\u00a0 And in particular, it is foreign<\/em> laborers, given Ghafour\u2019s assertion that \u201cEmirati men are courteous\u201d and \u201cnever stare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her claim that \u201cThe Emirates is the most female-friendly country in the Middle East\u201d seems hard to prove on this issue alone, as friendliness to women surely depends on more than government efforts with regards to public spaces, and freedom from staring.\u00a0 More importantly, we might ask which<\/em> women experience this friendliness; do, for example, foreign domestic workers, the female counterparts of these laborers, find the U.A.E. to be such a friendly country for them?\u00a0 Are low-income women able to benefit from this kind of legislation regarding malls and beaches?\u00a0 And is it possible, perhaps, that the government\u2019s \u201cfriendliness\u201d to the women who do<\/em> tend to access malls and beaches may be motivated more because of their class and their potential economic value to the government, rather than because of a \u201cfriendly\u201d attitude to women as a whole?<\/p>\n

To be honest, I know little about the U.A.E., and it would be great if someone called me out on my cynicism and told me that things are better than I imagine them to be.\u00a0 And I certainly don\u2019t want to be singling out the Emirati government (or local governments within the country) as exceptionally racist or classist, since I think those are pretty common factors in any government or society, my own Canadian one included.\u00a0 However, this article does leave the impression that, at least from the author\u2019s point of view, positive policies towards women can be measured by a set of standards that are clearly more applicable to women of higher economic classes.<\/p>\n

The article does become more nuanced as it goes on, and the writer acknowledges cultural differences with regards to staring that may explain some of the stares that women receive from the laborers.\u00a0 She even admits that \u201cThere is certainly an element of racism and snobbery in Al Bawadi Mall\u2019s decision. The laborers are poor South Asians and Arabs.\u201d\u00a0 Ghafour also talks about \u201cHollywood films featuring bimbos and the proliferation of pornography on the internet\u201d as reasons for some of the existing stereotypes about women, although not much is said about the need to address these as an additional way of fighting sexual harassment.\u00a0 She further discusses the importance of educating women and of fostering the participation of all women in public spheres.<\/p>\n

Yet the conclusion of the article returns to a particularly classist response:<\/p>\n

I recently moved house and hired a moving company, staffed by Indian and Bangladeshi workers. The foreman in charge was more interested in watching my movements than doing his own job. I finally snapped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you get on with your work? What if someone stared at your sister like that?\u201d<\/p>\n

When it becomes too much I create a mental buffer zone to tune out the calls and stares. If that doesn\u2019t work I try the shoe trick. When the offender shouts an insult, I stop, point at his shoes and laugh.<\/p>\n

It subtly shifts the balance of power. And I won\u2019t get arrested.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is there a special shoe meaning code that I\u2019m missing?\u00a0 Because the only reason I can think of that someone might laugh at someone\u2019s shoes in this context might be if they are old, falling apart, or somehow inappropriate for the situation (and that the person laughing, in contrast, has the luxury of wearing perfectly \u201cappropriate\u201d shoes.)\u00a0 To be fair, if someone is in a situation where she feels unsafe and that seems, in the moment, like the only way out, it might be somewhat excusable; however, it shouldn\u2019t ever be okay to advocate responding to sexism by denigrating someone based on class.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fatemeh already pointed out the obviousness of the title in last week\u2019s Friday Links, but Hamida Ghafour\u2019s article \u201cLewd stares distressing for women,\u201d published in the U.A.E.\u2019s The National newspaper, is worth a closer look.\u00a0 Although it seems to promote resistance to sexism and sexual harassment, it does so in a way that perpetuates \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[289,841,1215,1220,1414],"class_list":["post-4249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culturesociety","category-news","tag-classism","tag-migrant-workers","tag-sexism","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-u-a-e"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Emirates Fights Sexism by Exploiting Class-Based Oppression<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fatemeh already pointed out the obviousness 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