This morning, when I heard about what had happened to CBS reporter Lara Logan in Cairo, my heart sank. Independent of any of the surrounding circumstances, this was a terrible thing to happen to anybody, anywhere. That the attack was perpetrated on a white woman, in the Middle East, was horrifying on a more personal level.
What happened to her is my personal nightmare scenario come true, on a grand scale. And I would wager that it is the personal nightmare scenario for many, many other foreign women living in the Middle East.
For all of you who just rolled your eyes and thought, "boo hoo, so the blonde American girl is afraid of the Arab boogeyman," let me tell you why it can sometimes be unnerving to be an obviously foreign woman in the Middle East. Even when you're not a reporter. Even when you're trying to keep a low profile.
You're harassed all the time. The least scary form it takes is the constant staring. Not casual glances, but full-on, full-body staring. Then there's the tactic where when you're walking on an empty sidewalk, a man coming the other direction takes care to move all the way over so he brushes into you when you walk past. Sometimes it's almost a subtle body-check using the shoulder.
Then there's the verbal stuff. Catcalls from across the street, hopefully in a language you don't understand (or using vocabulary you don't understand. Mercifully, that is often the case). Muttered, suggestive-sounding comments tossed out by a man as you pass him. Or the direct, clearly stated harassment, the kind that makes me shudder just thinking about what I've been called and asked. Once, walking home from the grocery store in Cairo, a man sidled up next to me and said simply - not even bothering to whisper - "Sex?"
At the time, I was walking briskly with a sense of purpose, avoiding eye contact, and I was dressed in loose jeans and a butt-covering, non-form-fitting shirt with long sleeves. I was doing everything right to avoid being harassed. And it was meaningless. I was powerless. I can never unhear what he said and I can never unfeel the gross insult to my integrity.
And then there's the groping. The ubiquitous, pervasive groping, so common that most foreign women I know who have spent any length of time in the Middle East have had it happen to them. No matter what they were wearing, no matter what precautionary measures they took, no matter how long they managed to successfully avoid it. One by one, we all succumb.
This is a problem. And I feel like in many ways, we ladies try so hard to cope with it and still be able to live our lives here in the Middle East that we trivialize it. We laugh at it, or find something to blame it on ("it was my fault because I shouldn't have been riding in the mixed car"), or chalk it up to just another day in this crazy region. Until our nightmare scenarios come true, as they did to Lara Logan.
(I'm not trying to discount or ignore the harassment that Arab women face in their home countries. This blog post isn't about that but I am aware that they have their problems, too.)
I didn't really want to write about this. But I think it's important to point out that while the scale of what happened to Lara Logan is certainly beyond the scope of normal, the attitude behind it isn't. Not at all. And that's a tragedy, too.
I'm grateful that Ms. Logan was willing to go public with what happened to her, so soon after it happened. Maybe a little global outrage is what is needed to get the message that American women are not worthless, lowly beings to the people who need to hear it, so they'll stop treating us like that.
I remember when I attended a book talk at the University of Arizona featuring two (male) authors who had written books that required extensive research and travel in some of the most dangerous areas of the world. At the end of the authors' presentations, one of the audience members asked a question along the lines of, "Do you think it would have been possible for a woman to write this book, speaking purely in terms of personal safety in the areas you were researching?" And the unequivocal answer was, sadly, "No." (For more on that subject, read this report.)
Like I said, I didn't really want to write about this. Obviously I don't have any solutions to offer and not much intelligent analysis of causes, either. But I wanted to publicly state that when it comes to harassing a woman simply because she's blonde, or American, or has blue eyes, or is wearing short sleeves, or doesn't have a support network of brothers and uncles nearby, or doesn't wear the veil, there is no level of acceptability. There is no line beyond which you should not go, unless that line is set at absolute zero.
Mostly I'm just sick of pretending to not notice my womanhood being disrespected and dragged through the gutter by any man on the street who feels like it. Just once, I'd like to complain about it, loudly. And since it will most likely never happen face-to-face with the perpetrators, you get to hear about it instead.
Sorry, and best wishes to Lara Logan for a full and triumphant recovery.
What happened to her is my personal nightmare scenario come true, on a grand scale. And I would wager that it is the personal nightmare scenario for many, many other foreign women living in the Middle East.
For all of you who just rolled your eyes and thought, "boo hoo, so the blonde American girl is afraid of the Arab boogeyman," let me tell you why it can sometimes be unnerving to be an obviously foreign woman in the Middle East. Even when you're not a reporter. Even when you're trying to keep a low profile.
You're harassed all the time. The least scary form it takes is the constant staring. Not casual glances, but full-on, full-body staring. Then there's the tactic where when you're walking on an empty sidewalk, a man coming the other direction takes care to move all the way over so he brushes into you when you walk past. Sometimes it's almost a subtle body-check using the shoulder.
Then there's the verbal stuff. Catcalls from across the street, hopefully in a language you don't understand (or using vocabulary you don't understand. Mercifully, that is often the case). Muttered, suggestive-sounding comments tossed out by a man as you pass him. Or the direct, clearly stated harassment, the kind that makes me shudder just thinking about what I've been called and asked. Once, walking home from the grocery store in Cairo, a man sidled up next to me and said simply - not even bothering to whisper - "Sex?"
At the time, I was walking briskly with a sense of purpose, avoiding eye contact, and I was dressed in loose jeans and a butt-covering, non-form-fitting shirt with long sleeves. I was doing everything right to avoid being harassed. And it was meaningless. I was powerless. I can never unhear what he said and I can never unfeel the gross insult to my integrity.
And then there's the groping. The ubiquitous, pervasive groping, so common that most foreign women I know who have spent any length of time in the Middle East have had it happen to them. No matter what they were wearing, no matter what precautionary measures they took, no matter how long they managed to successfully avoid it. One by one, we all succumb.
This is a problem. And I feel like in many ways, we ladies try so hard to cope with it and still be able to live our lives here in the Middle East that we trivialize it. We laugh at it, or find something to blame it on ("it was my fault because I shouldn't have been riding in the mixed car"), or chalk it up to just another day in this crazy region. Until our nightmare scenarios come true, as they did to Lara Logan.
(I'm not trying to discount or ignore the harassment that Arab women face in their home countries. This blog post isn't about that but I am aware that they have their problems, too.)
I didn't really want to write about this. But I think it's important to point out that while the scale of what happened to Lara Logan is certainly beyond the scope of normal, the attitude behind it isn't. Not at all. And that's a tragedy, too.
I'm grateful that Ms. Logan was willing to go public with what happened to her, so soon after it happened. Maybe a little global outrage is what is needed to get the message that American women are not worthless, lowly beings to the people who need to hear it, so they'll stop treating us like that.
I remember when I attended a book talk at the University of Arizona featuring two (male) authors who had written books that required extensive research and travel in some of the most dangerous areas of the world. At the end of the authors' presentations, one of the audience members asked a question along the lines of, "Do you think it would have been possible for a woman to write this book, speaking purely in terms of personal safety in the areas you were researching?" And the unequivocal answer was, sadly, "No." (For more on that subject, read this report.)
Like I said, I didn't really want to write about this. Obviously I don't have any solutions to offer and not much intelligent analysis of causes, either. But I wanted to publicly state that when it comes to harassing a woman simply because she's blonde, or American, or has blue eyes, or is wearing short sleeves, or doesn't have a support network of brothers and uncles nearby, or doesn't wear the veil, there is no level of acceptability. There is no line beyond which you should not go, unless that line is set at absolute zero.
Mostly I'm just sick of pretending to not notice my womanhood being disrespected and dragged through the gutter by any man on the street who feels like it. Just once, I'd like to complain about it, loudly. And since it will most likely never happen face-to-face with the perpetrators, you get to hear about it instead.
Sorry, and best wishes to Lara Logan for a full and triumphant recovery.