Shortcut to Justice: A Marriage Between MENA’s Social, Sexual and Feminist Approaches

Being part of the Middle Eastern community, it becomes clear that there is a lack of understanding that Sexual Harassment of women is more than the mere act of sexual advancements without consent. Sexual Harassment of women is an attempt, usually by men, to abuse the power and privilege they naturally inherit from the misogynistic fabrics of our societies. It is the perfect play between corruption, lack of education and power dynamics infused with the toxic understandings of culture, tradition, and religion. Being as common and as normalized as it currently is, it’s becoming a gendered attempt to silence down women’s rebellious voices and marginalize them to gender roles and sexist stereotypes that only hinder the change-making process Middle Eastern generations have been working on.

We always hear about the Arab revolutions, strikes, protests and even leagues that were for the sole purpose of making a radical change in our communities however, nothing ever properly improved the state of sexual educational and feminist liberation to reach the standard humans, especially women, deserve to live by. Unfortunately, those topics are not given sufficient attention when discussing the impacts of corruption, lack of proper unbiased education and impulsive demands on the Arab mindset and therefore the rise and normalization of Sexual Harassment in the Middle East. There’s an underestimation of the significance of a sexual feminist awakening of our communities and how it is only when that is merged with our existing fights for socio-political change, that we can improve as a region and experience justice as a whole united body of people.

Therefore, I ask “How can including a social sexual and feminist approach to the change-making process help reduce sexual harassment in the Middle East”?

Around the time of the Arab Spring, the series of revolutions that were taking place in the MENA region, whether successful or not, had a general common theme to it. Triggered by the incident that initially started the Arab Spring, the people unitedly led protests and revolutions demanding the fall of the abusive dictatorship, the end of corruption and the betterment of their living standards among other social issues they demanded. It seemed like the beginning of radical change and an optimistic sign for a future where people saw no gender, religion, race or division in the fight for the better good and social justice. But was it all rainbows and butterflies?

Realistically, the revolutions were lacking. The uprisings were somehow an outrageous group of oppressed and tired people who were hitting the streets hungry for social justice and radical systematic change in their countries. People were settling for the utmost bare minimum of human rights as we have come to normalize a painfully low standard for living and human rights thus demanding the bare minimum had to feel like so much to ask for. General voices were speaking for social liberation but so many cries were left unheard. Those were national cries calling for the end of this region’s “persistent patriarchal attitudes, prejudices, and the traditionalist inclinations of men in power” which are only silencing the missing revolution, the female revolution (Breslin & Kelly 2010).

Having a more inclusive change-making process, one that has a social-sexual and feminist approaches, pushes people to start exposing themselves and call for a “more complex human rights framework”. We start educating our communities about issues like gender to start seeing that in fact, we are only asking for rights that would inherently benefit the male gender but put down women. Having this kind of sexual and female background to our demands increases our open-mindedness and strengthens our citizen body to appear as a unified voice asking for the maximum rights we deserve. This missing revolution blinds us from seeing a bigger picture and makes us hesitate to ask for every single right a decent human deserves to live with because of the illusion that it could be too much to ask for. When that inclusive mindset and approach comes into play, women would be seen and act more like “agents of change rather than passive victims of culture, patriarchy, and religion” (Naber 2011). We start patching up the gaps in our demands when “women couple their demands against the state with gender-specific demands for dignity against sexism and patriarchal violence, representation and inclusion in the new government, greater access to education, health care, and food, and increased opportunities for social spending benefits” (Naber 2011). It is only when women are included between the rows of protestors knowing that other male protestors see them as comrades rather than an opportunity to sexually harass women and express suppressed fantasies they have, we know we have come near a well-rounded revolution, a more ideal way of living and a stronger fight for justice (Kingsley 2013).

Another way we should consider the significant impact of adopting a more inclusive social sexual and feminist approach is through religion. Middle Eastern societies have come to institutionalize religion and weave it into the different fabrics of politics, economics and social issues that should be separated from the spiritual realm of religion. But for us, our religions define our lifestyles and provide a spectrum of social issues we should consider, to help us distinguish what’s right from what’s wrong. Religion calibrates our thinking and it has the power to influence people to behave and think in certain ways and it is even more solidified into our lifestyles when Arab governments institutionalize a religion like the adoption of Shari’a Law. Therefore, religion in such a situation has the utmost influencing power over anything as it is weaved into different aspects of a person’s life from politics to even culture and traditions.

Unfortunately, the thing with religion is that it has been institutionalized in a way that made it an outlet hijacked by patriarchal interpretations which only advantage men to aid them in rising and remaining in power even if it means disadvantaging women (Moghadam 2013). Such conservative male-dominated applications of the Shari’a law reinforces power dynamics and biased hierarchy and deeply entrenches societal norms paired with sexist stereotypes that continue to relegate women to an inferior status in Middle Eastern societies (Kelly 2010). Therefore, with people using the traditional untrue male interpretations of religion to guide their lives, it becomes inevitable that such cruel acts like Sexual Harassment would be committed especially that even our revolutions to make things “right” for us don’t demand the end of such an act and hence the normalization of Sexual Harassment.

Therefore, what we need is the introduction of an inclusive feminist and more modern interpretation of religion to reduce the chances of having corrupt sexist men hungry for power, abuse religion to establish a misogynistic system that lets men naturally inherit sexist inclinations and rise to power over women. This means, we would reread holy books from a feminist perspective to give value and significance for what women go through every day as an attempt to neutralize religion and stop abusing it for personal male interests. We already know that a lot of people use holy books as governing guidelines that they follow blindly. Therefore, integrating those toxic traditional interpretations even within politics knowing that it calls for the normalization of abusing, degrading, and objectifying women. With a change in the approach, we ensure radical top-down change that would reflect onto different aspects of our fights for justice and would ensure the dismantling of what Mona Eltahawi refers to as “the triangle of misogyny; the state the street the home”. That inclusive feminist approach is the only way to break that cycle of hell and have believers finally be able to unite and demand for rights and maximum standards of living. There would be no longer the silencing of rebellious women through sexual harassment and threats of risking the preservation of the “toxic” mix of culture, tradition and religion (Kingsley 2013). Generally, recreating the mindset recreates the entire change-making process and fight for justice. This way, gender and human rights would be framed in a more global, social, sexual and a feminist context, in ways that can account for the relationship between women’s oppression, specifically sexual harassment, state and military practices, and the global economy (Dialmy & Uhlmann 2005).

All in all, by breaking the gender apartheid and overcoming the triangle of misogyny, we are triggering a domino effect and paving the way for minority groups and the oppressed to start demanding inclusivity in the fight which opens up so many doors for systematic and social change. Even the psychological empowerment of women and the comfort of knowing that they can have the sole right to their bodies, are worthy of having their demands heard and have the law with them will eventually be an outbreak of change and empowerment of society as a whole.

Furthermore, I want to emphasize that one hand cannot clap on its own and so our fight for justice. We have been accustomed to speaking up against social and political concerns threatening our human rights assuming that this will guarantee the liberation of the Arab mind and thus the inevitable freedom. However, what we choose to neglect is that a one-sided fight misspeaking for half of the population, the women, will never produce the ripple effect a more inclusive feminist approach would. Women are moving into cities seeking opportunities, independence, and liberation (Moghadam 2013). They are trying to dismiss orientalist impressions of hyper-oppressed Arab women so let’s include them in our fight and let us see beyond gender and societal labels to elevate as a whole stronger body of people making it harder for corrupt authorities to dismiss our inclusive demands (Inglehart & Norris 2009).

Be angry. Speak up. Cry. Please yourself. Let loose of extra energy. But not on the price of our safety, wellbeing and rights as women … as human beings. Please, understand that the most powerful but vicious tool of oppression is the lack of knowledge. So, educate yourself and empathize with us women who despite knowing that our safety and sexuality will be compromised the moment we leave our safe zones, we still join the rows of protests to amplify the voice of the people and fight against the deadly powers of misogyny. Educate yourself that sexual harassment is a byproduct of corruption, oppression and patriarchy that have been passed down generations to ensure the inferiority of women. Sexual harassment does not only impact the victim but in fact is the harassment of an entire gender who has been constantly fighting two fights simultaneously. It is only an illusion of power that the system wants a man to feel and an illusion of inferiority and weakness that it wants women to feel to suppress the prevailing revolutions waiting to be reborn.

By: Farah Abdel-Jawad's Wandering Mind