Moroccan wives

Lightheartedly, I would tease Natasha that with all of the cooking she could be mistaken for my Moroccan wife, especially when we reached the point where she had to hang my undies on the clothesline. Ok, this had less to do with me being a terrible feminist than with Morocco having a “peculiar” form of patriarchy. Natasha’s neighbor is a young (21 y.o.) newlywed that isn’t allowed to leave her home. Her husband has forbidden her from leaving the home until she bears him a child, preferably a son. She relies on others, usually children to buy her food and other necessary items. The clothes hang on the roof through her apartment, so I couldn’t go. As a smaller town, Azilal is a relatively more conservative place (though for from the worst in Morocco) than say Rabat, but even in the big cities you would see women in burkas. One of the things I will never forget was seeing a woman in Marrakech covered head to toe in a black burka, with mesh across her eyes. She was wearing gloves so that no part of her skin was visible, even though it was over 90 degrees at the time. What’s more, she couldn’t even see and had to be led through the chaotic streets by another woman not as conservatively dressed. I had Granted not all women wear veils, least of all the burka, and many women who do wear the veils still manage to express themselves through their clothes and try to get cute with it. As I have already said before, the veil means many different things in different places and times and therefore my horror could just reflect Western prejudice. There are women who argue that the veil can be empowering. What is undeniably terrible about gender relations in Morocco is the extreme gender segregation and consequent relegation (many would say condemnation) of women to the home or “private sphere.” There are no women in the public sphere, few in government, business, education, health. And sometimes you don’t even have to see things from that macro-level, I had days when I was traveling when I would go 12 or 14 hours without seeing a single female. But then the truth is that as much as Arab Muslim societies get vilified for their treatment of women (did you know that women can’t drive in Saudi Arabia?!) it is wack to be a woman everywhere. The point is that as a woman you basically pick your poison. But it’s hard to decide which country is worse because every country oppresses women, just differently and it’s hard to decide which basket of evils is worse. In Morocco it’s the burka and extreme segregation and confinement, while in the US it’s eating disorders, porn, BET and date rape, and in Senegal it’s polygamy, and FGM, while in India it’s dowry murder and female infanticide and abortion, and so on. To be blunt, what’s the point of being unveiled when they have cut your clitoris; at least the veil doesn’t stop you from enjoying yourself when you know one of these men never could. And for America what’s the point of having all of this money and “freedom” when women are willing to starve themselves and can’t get their head out of the toilet bowl to enjoy the freedoms bequeathed by modernity. Misogyny has many faces, hard to say which is ugliest. Still I can’t shake off the feeling that I would rather be a woman in the US than in Morocco.