I have two annoying tendencies that according to my aunt will result in me “not smelling the prospect of marriage before age thirty,” a fate more dreaded by Arab women than malignant breast cancer.
The first tendency is cursing, eating, and generally behaving like an Arab caveman, a creature even less civilized than your average caveman.
The second tendency is my eavesdropping. I have an insatiable itch to stick my nose in the business of others and generally think privacy is an overrated concept. This tendency almost got me dragged into a married couple’s fight, which would have ended with my face flattened by a flying shoe.
I was shamelessly leaning out of my window, straining my neck to get a better view of my neighbors’ living room, when a flushed face appeared before me and asked what in the world was I doing. “Err-Yoga,” I blurted out, beaming as much innocence as my puppy eyes would allow.
Ahmed, the husband, momentarily glared at me, then felt the breast pocket of his square-patterned shirt, and produced a cigarette from which he drew angry puffs of smoke. Instead of retreating in silence, I changed windows, because no one tells me what to do. He sat back down at the dining table next to his new wife, Fatima, who fidgeted awkwardly in her shapeless, plain dress. She readjusted her loose headscarf nervously as she intently watched her husband sample her food with the pretentious smugness of a French food critic.
After several hums and lip smacks, Ahmed assumed the air of a dissatisfied customer and said, “You call this breakfast? I work hard and I expect a pretty smile and decent food on the table, lady.” Fatima muttered something under her breath as she whisked the rejected breakfast away, but quickly retracted her quiet remarks, because reminding your husband of the sacrifices and your life prior to his ruling of it, is not recommended, at least if you like your front teeth.
This incident illustrates only the tip of iceberg when it comes to gender ine-fucking-quality in the Arab world. The most basic and prominent form of which is the tabooing of the female body.
The only thing Arabs like less than their oil being sold below market value is their women showing skin. Allah, do we hate the sight, feel, and thought of it!
The minute an Arab woman dares to exist on the streets; she becomes an even bigger cause of traffic than that head-on collision down the road. Honks and catcalls greet her first. Then comes the “do you know I can see your skin?” questions by disbelieving pedestrians, who have never seen the yellowish stretchy material that covers their body, except in their showers, where they’re scandalously down to just their underwear.
Arab men react to such a sight in four ways: 1) Stare, wide-eyed and open-mouthed in shock; 2) tell you about the hells awaiting on the other side of Judgment day; 3) describe your body and your outfit for you, in case your mirrors weren’t keeping you up-to-date; and 4) attempt to seduce you via catcalls utilizing the look Tom Cruise puts on before he gets some. Problem is, it comes across as if they’re lubricating rotten eggs with their tongues.
This commotion is fomented by the belief that a woman’s body is a man’s property. So when the product walks off the shelf in heels, it must be because she hasn’t been bought just yet, and her “parade” puts her on sale. Thing is, Arabs don’t buy cheap vaginas, or used ones for that matter. Buying a second-hand vagina to them is like sitting in a chair previously occupied by an ugly person. It’s just an unnecessary dread.
Personally, I’d rather walk the streets of Cairo naked than endure the company of sexist feminists, the predominant type on this patch of Earth. Over here, a female is described as a “butterfly," “flower,” “precious stone,” and “breeze,” her existence summed up with basic life forms, inanimate objects and mild wind movements. This makes heroes of feminists like Aliaa Al Mahdi for posting nude pictures of herself to protest the society’s objectification and sexualization of women. Although the only thing her message did was smudge millions of turbans that were dropped on the floor as Arab men bent over backwards laughing at it.
Fortunately, they had their women there to clean them up.
While the message was good, her execution was shit. It confirmed all the misconceptions about liberals being “sluts” (not saying she is one) and alienated her target audience, who until now think that she’s a stupid follower of Shaytan (Arabic for “devil”). She continues to do more harm than good online by recently posting an image that is supposed to portray the oppression of women in Islamified countries. It shows a picture of Miss Tunisia in the ’50s wearing a bikini next to a picture of a veiled woman with the burqa, along with a caption that reads MISS TUNISIA 2012.
Evidently, she overlooked the fact that beauty pageants are lousy examples of female empowerment, since they’re superficial competitions where women slave to meet misogynistic standards to essentially gain male approval. Also maybe, just maybe, it was the veiled woman’s choice to cover up.
In both Miss Tunisia cases, the women were dressing to please men, yet Arab feminists respect one of them while women and pity the other. This shows that Arabs understand the concept of feminism as well as I understand the concept of time travel.
The reason behind this hilariously twisted logic is because Arabs blindly copy western thoughts, without any real understanding of their origins.
Still, feminists depict the ancient (and sexist) view that Arab men are cold-hearted creatures who whip four women at a time while stroking their bushy beards, and reading the Quran… which prompts me to exclaim: Bitch, please!
The reason why Arab men suck so much (according to western standards of liberty and equality) is because Arab women suck even more. The only woman the Arab man don’t actively oppress, physically or psychologically, is his mama, which is funny because she’s usually the one who turned him into a discrimination-breathing, insecure little dragon. After his mother, come all the women in his life, who either tolerate or feed his idiocy.
“I wouldn’t leave my mom except for someone who could replace her. Someone who knows how much salt I like on my food, my pet peeves and would worship me like she does,” says Rami, a proud sexist, listing the qualities of the “perfect wife.”
Rami’s favorite memory of his mom, was when she would spend the entire day pampering her “little man,” making sure he knew “that he’s the center of mommy’s world.” She’d do that after his sessions of jumping up and falling down repeatedly, in objection to the existence of the force of gravity. He would sustain minor injuries brought on by obvious stupidity, to which she’d tend without complaining.
Naturally, Rami like millions of Arabs (male and female) grew up thinking that all women are creatures bred for males’ mental, physical, and emotional satisfaction. So if a woman leads a different lifestyle, one that includes work, education and interests (you know, a western idea of life) it becomes an inconvenient obstacle in the way of the “natural order of things.”Since it would distract women from their mind-stimulating future of domestic servitude
Over here, a child is born, then fed, then given a pacifier and a plan for the next 25 years of his or her life. We’re used to being told what to do by families, until they choose a spouse for us. Then we get used to being told what to do by a coalition of the two families. The result is, honestly, the likes of me.
Decisions stifle me. Choices confuse me. And I don’t exactly bite my nails out of hunger. Here’s how I make serious life decisions:
I lay in bed covered with dozens of crumpled up paper (the papers include systematic calculations and several unfinished logical comparisons of the pros and cons). I stare meaningfully at the ceiling waiting for it to wink in favor of a certain course of action. It doesn’t, so I sigh deeply and continue to look like a rejected lover in a Shakespearean play. Concerned family members appear through the door. “Are you okay? You seem off,” they say.
“Oh, observant, aren’t we? I wonder what gave me away. Was it my not-at-all shuffled appearance or my habitual demeanor?” I reply. We bicker over the kind of attitudes present in the room and how some, namely my own, are uncalled for. Next, I quickly and dramatically explain my dilemma, and secretly decide to not to follow whatever advice I receive, only to return to bed and sulk for a period ranging anywhere from five minutes to a whole day.
We are like sheep waiting for a shepherd to shoo us in a direction. Take Egypt for example, it hasn’t had a decent leader since… well, since Egypt. The pharaohs were enslaving incestuous creeps, and the presidents were just different degrees of shit. Yet somehow, the sheep are supposed to get educated and collectively make informed decisions, all despite being shooed in the same direction by the same shepherd.
So the probability that we make sound decisions in the 2012 elections, resulting in a not-entirely-evil president, is even less likely than the probability chocolate has of staying untouched in my presence.
Other than rigged, mindless elections, the only thing the Arab Spring did was prompt feminists to put on their monocles and criticize the newly-founded parliaments for having an average of 7.5 female members, which isn’t enough to represent Arab women. Meanwhile, I was wondering how they could manage to serve tea and cook for the 500 “real” MPs.
Thoughtfully, the parliament made up for the lack of women by voting to remove the law against sexual harassment and female circumcision, because when someone forces themselves on you, it is in fact your fault, and having a sexually satisfying, unmutilated vagina is a crime against the state and a sin. (FYI: these laws were proposed by the 7.5 female members)
This forces me to conclude that only one word can sum up the Arab world as a whole; prepubescent. We’re stuck at the intellectual age of 13, still about to get the “Quit picking your nose, kid; you’re an adult now and you’re going to grow hair in your special places” talk.
But no, we’re not that bad. Egypt is safe and the weather is lovely. Come visit.
Shakes head violently.