{"id":564,"date":"2008-05-14T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.wordpress.com\/2008\/05\/14\/let%e2%80%99s-talk-about-love-%e2%80%94-saudi-style-2\/"},"modified":"2011-12-08T23:35:01","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T03:35:01","slug":"let%e2%80%99s-talk-about-love-%e2%80%94-saudi-style-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2008\/05\/let%e2%80%99s-talk-about-love-%e2%80%94-saudi-style-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk about Love \u2014 Saudi Style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday\u2019s issue of the New York Times<\/span> featured a look at romance among the youth of Saudi Arabia. It\u2019s not the first time the Times<\/span> has addressed<\/a> this topic. The Western media has an intense fascination when it comes to Saudi Arabia and romance, if Valentine\u2019s Day coverage<\/a> is any clue.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s coverage includes separate articles for the female and male perspectives, along with a slideshow<\/a> of \u201cyouth in the kingdom\u201d \u2014 all of whom are men. Good job making women invisible. Isn\u2019t that supposed to be the Saudis\u2019 job, media? I guess it doesn\u2019t just take an abaya after all. We\u2019ll focus on the article<\/a> about women, \u201cLove on Girls\u2019 Side of the Saudi Divide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problems start as early as the photo. Accompanying the article is a picture of \u201cShaden.\u201d Her face covered in black cloth, she sits between her younger sister (whose face and head are bare, as though to contrast with her sister), and her father. Shaden is gesturing with her hands, and her sister looks solemn. Good way to make the father look like a bad guy right off the bat. The caption only identifies Shaden as \u201cveiled at 17.\u201d Interesting wording. First, \u201cveiled\u201d is imprecise. Not all women who \u201cveil\u201d cover all of, or even any of, their faces. (The only photo including a women\u2019s face shows Sara al-Tukhaifi \u2014 looking depressed, of course. Unlike the slideshow of laughing men, there are no photos of happy women.)<\/p>\n

Second, the photo makes it obvious what Shaden is wearing. What does the caption add by emphasizing her clothing? Well, the passive voice makes it sound like \u201cveiling\u201d was something done to Shaden, and the placement of \u201cat 17\u201d \u2014 instead of, say, \u201cShaden, 17, spoke with her father\u201d \u2014 hints at the classic Orientalist tragedy. Veiled at 17, married off at 18 \u2014 you know the rest. (I don\u2019t want to deny the reality of this experience, because it does happen. But as far as this article is concerned, it\u2019s not Shaden\u2019s story, so it\u2019s not relevant.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Times<\/span> has a tendency towards Orientalist portrayals of Saudi Arabia. The women interviewed are introduced as<\/p>\n

swaying and gyrating, without the slightest self-consciousness, among overstuffed sofas, heavy draperies, tables larded with figurines and ornately-covered tissue boxes\u2026 their head-to-toe abayas, balled up and tossed onto chairs, \u2026 like black cloth puddles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Really, do the sofas, drapes, and \u201cornately-covered\u201d tissue boxes have anything to do with the lives of teenage Saudi girls? I think not. Instead, they help to set the \u201cexotic\u201d scene \u2014 women liberated from their \u201cblack puddles\u201d become gyrating dancers. Come on; you don\u2019t even need to have heard of Edward Said to call this Orientalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You see, in the mysterious desert kingdom \u2014 articles rarely forget to emphasize the sand, the wind, the backwards glamour of it all! \u2014 women aren\u2019t quite the same as women here in the United States. It\u2019s not that the government limits their rights and society is more conservative. That\u2019s clear, of course. It\u2019s that the women themselves are of a different sort \u2014 or so the article implies.<\/p>\n

Women are characterized as children. They \u201cfalter,\u201d \u201csway slightly on high heels,\u201d \u201ctotter,\u201d and \u201cnod earnestly, dark ringlets bouncing\u201d (Shirley Temple, anyone?). Oh, and the standard female stereotypes, of course: they \u201cgiggle,\u201d \u201cshriek\u201d and \u201cburst into tears.\u201d You\u2019d think the possibility of talking to a man drives every single Saudi women to nervous collapse.<\/p>\n

This image of women is reminiscent of Jane Austen, and indeed, the article ends on that note: Shaden sighs deeply, and references the Pride and Prejudice<\/span> film: \u201cWhen Darcy comes to Elizabeth and says \u2018I love you\u2019 \u2014 that\u2019s exactly the kind of love I want,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Nineteenth-century British romance is presented as an impossible ideal, the kind of thing Saudi women can only long for. The NYT <\/span>tells us that for Saudi women, progress is what we in the United States consider history. It\u2019s an affirmation of the superiority of the English-speaking world. The journalist leaves out the fact that it\u2019s not just Saudi women who sigh over Mr. Darcy. American author Shannon Hale wrote an entire novel<\/a> about the Mr. Darcy complex in modern-day American women (and she wasn\u2019t the only one to do so). But the message comes across differently when it\u2019s a Saudi women, her restrictions already explained, sighing over a romance from foreign cinema.<\/p>\n

The nature of same-sex relationships also undergoes a transformation when Saudi women are involved. Journalist Katherine Zoepf references a \u201csupposed increase in same-sex love affairs among young people frustrated at the strict division between the genders.\u201d As though gender division is a good enough reason to explain all same-sex \u201clove affairs.\u201d But, wait, that\u2019s not the only cause:<\/p>\n

Ms. Tukhaifi and Shaden know of girls in their college who have passionate friendships, possibly even love affairs, with other girls but they say that this, like the cross-dressing, is just a \u201cgame\u201d born of frustration, something that will inevitably end when the girls in question become engaged.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m missing something, but it seems a bit off that \u201cfrustration\u201d would lead to \u201cpassionate\u201d friendships. Eventual engagements may end same-sex relationships, but that doesn\u2019t mean the women were only playacting. Never in the article is there any acknowledge that homosexuality can and does exist even in conservative parts of the world. This does an excellent job enforcing the (false) idea that not only is homosexuality a choice, but it\u2019s specifically a product of Western liberal society. We know that Saudi society does not accept homosexuality. Therefore, Saudi women can\u2019t actually be gay \u2014 they\u2019re only straight women playing \u201cgames\u201d because they\u2019re bored. It\u2019s unfortunate that Zoepf relies only on hearsay to discuss this topic. The phrase \u201clove affair\u201d further belittles same-sex relationships.<\/p>\n

Zoepf does a decent job not presenting Islam as a strict monolith. She notes distinctions between culture and religion and describes Saudi Islam as but one interpretation of Islam. Nevertheless, some ultraconservative interpretations are thrown in as undisputed facts. Zoepf quotes Tukhaifi as saying \u201cIslam forbids a stranger to hear your voice,\u201d and she never explains further. This rule is certainly not a universally held fact of Islam. And it leaves the reader wondering \u2014 how does a woman ask for something in a shop? How does she communicate with her teachers? How are these women talking to Zoepf, a journalist? The clarification \u201cmale\u201d would have helped, but it still raises questions that are never answered in the story. At another point, music is referenced as haram, but this is not explained either, even though the introduction describes th
\ne women dancing to music.<\/p>\n

Another issue with the story is the lack of class diversity. The women interviewed appear to be at least upper middle class. They all have leisure time and access to new technology; money does not seem to be a concern. Contrary to stereotypes, this isn\u2019t the situation for all Saudis. It would have been interesting to hear about the lives of lower-class Saudi women, who cannot be as easily \u201cspirited around the city,\u201d and how their pursuit of romance differs from that of wealthier Saudi women.<\/p>\n

According to the sidebar with the subhead \u201cThrough a Veil, Lightly,\u201d this article is the fourth installment of the series \u201cGeneration Faithful,\u201d composed of \u201carticles examining the lives of youth across the Muslim world at a time of religious revival.\u201d While the article addresses the issues institutionalized religion create, it never explores the personal faith of the women interviewed. Close enough, I guess?<\/p>\n

One reader commented on the story, \u201cIt\u2019s humanizing and relieving to understand that, despite the severity of their oppression, these women still have joy and desires.\u201d Really. Is this what journalism aims for? Showing that Saudi women are still human beings, still have \u201cjoys and desires\u201d? Alas. That was obvious, I thought. Do people really think Saudi women are robots under their abayas and face covers? Oh my. We still have a long way to go.<\/p>\n

Photo from the New York Times.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday\u2019s issue of the New York Times featured a look at romance among the youth of Saudi Arabia. It\u2019s not the first time the Times has addressed this topic. The Western media has an intense fascination when it comes to Saudi Arabia and romance, if Valentine\u2019s Day coverage is any clue. Yesterday\u2019s coverage includes separate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":411,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culturesociety","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nLet\u2019s Talk about Love \u2014 Saudi Style<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday\u2019s issue of the New York Times featured a look at romance among the youth of Saudi Arabia. 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