please stand up!
A write up on the Sydney Morning Herald Website caused quite a stir a few days ago amongst locals and expats alike. After reading the article, the takeaway would be that Qatari women are sequestered in a faraway cave with no technology or Louis Vuitton at their disposal. No shopping, no phones? Really now. Totally laughable to ANYONE living in or visiting Qatar. If anyone is missing out on the SHOPPING Qatari women or the BLACKBERRY devices growing out of their ears, a trip to the ophthalmologist is most assuredly in order. Newsflash, even though shopping and mobiles seem to take up quite a bit of their time, their engineering degrees take up more. Get real, people.
The writer at the SMH has his vision of Qatari women, but I have another. The realistic one...
Please feel free to go to the comment section at the Sydney Morning Herald to put in your 2QR.
Read responses from Miran Hosny's in Global Voices and Shabina Khatri in Doha News with added twitter reactions from locals and expats.
To read or leave comments, please click on the comments link below. Thanks!
unfortunately probably thats not the only paper that thinks of Qatari women or Arab women in general in that way. I would say most Americans and probably europeans too think of Arab women as prisoners of men.
ReplyDeleteI am a student in QF, and every year some students from the US visit us during the spring break. You would be surprised at how astonished they are at the country. Even though these are educated college students
They are surprised we have cars, can you imagine!.
They are surprised we have starbucks, KFS McDonlads....
They are surprised at the facilities we have at the universities
They are surprised that there are female students studying next to the guys
They are surprised pretty much about everything other than us having camels and the desert.
We take the students on a desert tour and they are like "thats more like it". Thats what they expect when they visit Qatar.
But I dont blame them, the only time Qatar was shown in a movie, the Transformers, they should the American base and then a bunch of people living in tents. And thats what millions of people think of Qatar.
Before coming to Qatar 5 years ago, I did a lot of research and pretty much knew what to expect physically. I was excited to know that there were comforts from home at my disposal...Applebees, Chili's, Burger King, etc., you know, the important stuff! Behavior wise, I had read that women should not make eye contact with local men. I honestly honored this statement until I realized it was baloney. The problem is that we (Americans and others) do rely on the Internet for our facts and it is just so unfortunate that so much misinformation is out there. I always do my best to "educate" my family and friends back home about Qatar and dispel any crazy notions they may have. Thanks for your comments and I will continue to try to be a good steward for Qatar!
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