Come out of the Arab closet please!

That last paragraph is classic Mona…

Too much to say… so little space…

I will say this, you are playing with fire… you will just get more of this mail … not that it changes anything

To all the emailers … here’s a big HINT

The person with the blog is the person with the microphone !!!!!!!!!!!

This is like when someone in the audience tries to heckle a stand up comedian …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sm1pFgwXXM

People nowadays are cowards, they are afraid of people’s reactions. Arabs are high context cultural people, which means if they don’t like something they talk about it behind your back in the groups unlike Western people who are low context cultural people who tell you straight to your face what they disagree with or dislike. I agree, they are afraid of Mais, because she says things out in the open and doesn’t sugarcoat cold hard facts. We need more outspoken people in the world like you and Mais… and cowards if you have something to say, say it to our faces, don’t be shy… don’t prove our assumption of you been a coward to be right… come on, be brave like the rest of us!

You’re really courageous Mona! I agree with you, people shouldn’t be afraid of expressing themselves. It won’t make you less of a person if you tell someone what you feel about.

@Mona
Well they need to build their self-confidence and not feel threatened by what other people think, after all your blog is a symbol of free speech

i swear the other day i was joking about that, i am muslim and all that, but seriously now correct me if i sound ignorant, becuase i have never been to KSA but how do guys get married can they see the girl they are choosing? or is it a gamble where you just hope she is pretty. this is just directed towards the arab girls that cover there face, not the ones with the hijabs which might i add i like how in the modern world arab girls are very stylish with the hijabs lol.

…………. =)

@osama

So say you have a ‘type’ that you like … for example you like brunettes with green eyes (rare combination genetically speaking, even rarer in this part of the world) but anyway

Basically the guy comes up with a ‘portfolio’ of looks based on actresses or whatever and communicates that look to his mom and sisters (who will operate on his behalf in this whole deal).

At the same time you have a certain assumption (of course an untested assumption since theoretically you’ve never dated to know weather or not these assumptions are true) about what sorts of character traits you want in a girl… or in general, in a partner, to compliment or synergize with whatever character traits you posses…

So you communicate those character traits as well.

Then there is a whole list of other ‘filtration criteria’ that your mom and sisters will automatically add on having to do with the girl’s background, family status, socio-economic background, past history with extended family …etc ( remember this person will become part of your family now, so they will never choose someone for YOU, that THEY can’t get along with… )

So you take those three sets of requirements:

Looks
Assumed character traits (at this point this is just a guess)
General familial compatibility criteria

And then there is a massive country wide brainstorming session where your mom (and her advisors who can be your aunts or her friends) each recursively filter down their already mental list of relatives and acquaintances daughters…. looking for a ‘closest match’ to what you have asked for

Once they find one ( or a few of these girls)

The women (your mom and sisters) go out and meet the girl and her mom … and they do a pre-interview … if that gets the green light… the guy goes to meet the girls dad or brother (her guardian basically) for the 2nd screening…

if you pass those two… you get to meet the girl for maybe 5 to 10 minutes, see her in person…

then there’s like a 3 day huddle…

and either a go ahead or a sorry this is not going to work out

If all that fails, then your mom redoes the filtering and you go see another girl

and the process can take a year … or it can take 2 weeks… depends

The tough parts:

1- If your mom is ultra religious, you will not be able to talk to her about what you want the girl to look like physically… she won’t hear of it… girls are not ‘objects’… she’s choosing a wife for you… she’s going to choose a good muslim wife from a good family and you’re going to have to live with her looks …

This happens alot here and is both a curse and a blessing… it’s a curse because they guy can get stuck with someone he doesnt find appealing… it’s a blessing as ‘good girls’ can get married even if they’re not good looking (which is harder to do in the western world that is more driven by dating and appearance).

In this case what usually happens is the guy tries as much as possible to communicate his ideas about looks to his sisters who will be more understanding about such things… if you have no sisters… you’re screwed.

2- Depending on weather or not the girl’s parents are more liberal or conservative, they may save the hassle of a triple screening by exchanging a passport style photo … no need to get the girl’s hopes up about marriage if the guy isn’t into her looks for example… so the moms might exchange photos before the Dads know anything about the suiter … and so the guy knows (before getting grilled by her Dad) weather or not he’s interested in the first place.

3- Because of how people are getting more westernized now but not at teh same time … we end up in a weird place where people like me will not marry through the traditional arranged marriage way… at the same time … lots of traditional marriages are ending in divorce because this generation is less ‘hardcore’ and will work hard on a failing marriage running on nothing but faith and hope…

divorce rates are on the rise and marriage rates are dropping (or marriage age is shifting higher) …

Due to this, some less conservative parents are allowing limited ‘mixers’ between their children if there is a positive understanding of marital intent … kind of like a supervised date or whatever… I’ve been on one of these with my Mom (kind of by accident though)… you know women don’t drive here … so you drive your mom to meet her friend at the mall… or something and her daugther ‘happens to be there with her’…

They think this kind of less formal meeting may spark something … and might turn into a positive thing.

I have eight close people around me (cousins & friends) that got married in the last three years and they are all my age give or take 2 years (so 27 to 32 years of age,,, which is a later marrying age overall)

1 of them married his first cousin , who he’s been in love with since highschool
2 of them married girls they met through friends and were dating (yes dating in Saudi)
3 of them were arranged by their moms
1 of them met his wife at the hospital lab where he works (hospitals are mixed environments and most girls that work there are liberal – aka dont cover their faces)
1 of them met his wife while doing his PHD in Canada

Now I know this is just the population around me, but that’s a pretty good mix of how things happen here… so 4 out of the 8 were traditional marriages of arranged or familial (cousin) marriages… and 4 were a mix of dating , mixed work (hospitals, banks, international companies), and living abroad
…

That’s how it works… feel free to ask questions …

I hate to say this though, having 3 sisters… it’s worse for girls here than it is for guys…

A guy, when he decides to get married, has the entire family working towards that goal… and yes it may take a year, and yes it may be a sub-optimal matching … but in the end, if you’re a guy, and you can support a family, and you want to get married… the arranged thing pretty much works and you will eventually find someone to get married to.

For girls… there is no ‘active search party’… it’s more passive and more subtle… the girl has to take care of her looks and weight… she has to be pleasant and sociable with everybody… she has to run a PR campaign and manager her ‘public image’… she has to dress up and go to weddings looking good but not too good…. looking both girly and womanly…. basically creating a ‘honey pot’ so to speak to attract moms to getting her on their list…

If your daughter is a geek… if she’s not very outgoing or talkative… if she’s too laid back… if she’s opinionated… if she’s career driven … etc

She will not make it on any of the mom’s mental lists… (remember how I said the mom and sister will add their own filtration criteria even without talking to you).

Every mom already has a ‘list’ in mind of ‘acceptable’ candidates … when you tell her you want to get married all she does is pull up a file out of that list (unless you ask for something completely out of the ordinary or completely contradictory to what she had in mind)

So if you’re a girl, and you’re not in that mental list… you’re out of sight / out of mind …

Go log into any marriage / dating site focused on girls in the Arab world… you find two very striking statistics in there:

21 & Divorced profiles << these people made it into the list, got married, and it fell apart.
and
39 & Never married profiles << these people never made it onto that mental list…

I have 3 sisters
My eldest is career driven and opinionated… and we know she's not on that list … she has not had a single suiter come by in a while …

My yonger is more reserved and quiet , especially at parties and gatherings … and as much as my mom pushes her to do things differently it just isn't working out… she's not really on that list either, and she's had a few interests but nothing too serious or too frequent

My youngest sister is too young for any of this, but she carries herself more 'professionally' in public already (partly because she's the youngest and got to see how her older sisters do things) and we know for sure that she's on that list with a few people already… and she's also sending out the right signals of 'yes when i get to college i wouldn't mind getting married early'…

basically prepping, and dealing with how this society does things, rather than turning your back on them and trying to find another solution…

So there you guy… girls have it worse… and they can't even speak up about it because that makes them unbashful

@Haitham Al Humsi

I totally LOVED what you had to say. I mean usually I would hear that from a girl but honestly I think you elaborated much better.

A little boy is lost in a public market, in Saudi Arabia. Concerned, a policeman asks the boy “what’s wrong?” to which the boy replies “I lost my mom.” The policeman asks “Can you describe your mom to me so that we can find her?” and the little boy goes “Sure. She has eyes.” :down:

@ Haitham,

Im muslim myself (Moroccan) & born and raised in Europe
(I have never been in the KSA)
I knew things were different over there, even compared to morocco.
But i would have never guessed that you guys had it this bad.

I knew a Saudi guy (from uni) and he would never talk so freely about life in the KSA. The things he did share were quite similar to life everywhere else. He once mentioned that I would not be able to live there…(too strict) which is the only thing that I can relate to your story.
Even after reading “Girls of Ryadh I always thought things were oké @ the KSA and that it should be pretty much the same as in any other muslim country… (little did i know)
But hearing your story I now have a total different view on it.

It’s hard getting a date (or a marriage proposal ) )over here (Europe) so i can only imagine what it must be like for you guys…

Thx for all the info,

Greetings

Haitham I used to work for a firm that was a mixed environment. There were people from various nationalities, asians, europeans, africans, and arabs. Anyways, after a few weeks at work, a man (24 yrs) was always trying to get in time to chat with me. After speaking to him I found that he grew up in Saudi (however he was not Saudi originally but still of arab origin). Anyways, time went on, and I felt more comfortable with my position in my working environment, and began to feel quite happy. So, as I began to be more comfortable, I became quite chatty and was speaking to everybody. Now, this particular man, was constantly chasing me! Offcourse, as a woman, Im quite flattered when I recieve compliments, so we exchanged emails (I gave him my work address). He started sending me love letters, with all sorts of romantic declarations, etcetera, and when that happened, I thought to myself this guy is not the most decent and therefore limited my contact with him. (I never hung out with him, we never even went to have a coffee, that is how formal our relationship was). Anyways, after a few months, I got an extremely abusive email, from a woman claiming to be his fiance. This guy had forgotten that he was about to be married, and to make matters worse, he went and told the poor woman he was leaving her for a woman he was ”madly in love with”. The poor girl then went through his emails and found all his emails he had sent me. I couldnt believe what he’d done, and I couldnt believe something like that would happen to me of all people (I maintain v. formal relationships with most men I know) but I agreed to meet her. As soon as she saw me she burst into tears and I ended up comforting her the entire conversation. I felt for her and I would never wish that on any woman, the entire time I was thinking to myself, I am such a huge supporter of women, I cant believe this is happening to me! The next day at work I spoke to the guy, and I gave him a very stern telling off. He completely ignored what I said and he leaned in and tried to kiss me! I couldnt believe it! This guy was supposed to have his wedding (at the time) in three months time! I slapped him (yes, I did!) and I continued to ignore him. He broke it off with his fiance (ugh). He kept chasing me. When it continued, and after his sister phoned me, I had enough humiliation. I left my work. I never expected such a thing to happen to me, but it did. It would not have gotten that far if I didnt think that I was the opposite of what that kind of guy is looking for, maybe if I had opened my eyes and taken things a bit more seriously I wouldnt have jeapordized my career, life, and reputation. So there you go.

@please explain

I don’t know how to answer without making extreme generalizations. It’s not just Saudi.

You’re talking about a person (if we can call him that) who has no faith and no education… and you need at least one to be human, and to treat a woman with respect.

This isn’t just Saudi though. I’ve heard worse. I’ve heard a guy from a neighboring country tell the story of how he raped a girl – who might have been a 2nd cousin of his … on an impulsive decision… because he ran into her while she was in a vulnerable state and scantly dressed… and she WAS a virgin…

And after telling his story I saw him receive positive feedback from the people around him for doing it…. the he was a MAN

This is possible whenever you create a male dominant society … people will in those societies take those ideas to the extreme. This happens in every country in the world… but yes Saudi has a very obviously male dominant society … and the government is catching on now, and trying to diffuse that with liberal media, and creating disproportionate female opportunities (such as the current wave of scholarships of Saudi girls abroad) to try and diffuse the situation, in the fear of a possible or eminent feminist social reform movement that could reshape the entire social situation here.

The idea can be implicit or explicit. It doesn’t matter…. so long as the young boys still get the idea that they are worth more than the girls… and so long as they have no interaction with this ambiguous, mysterious female ‘creature’.. they will always continue to objectify women.

This happened in north africa recently after their civil wars where the government urged the men to procreate to make up for the sheer amount of loss of life during the war and the scarcity of young men… and that led to a wave of rapes and abuse of the *north african country* women because they were seen as a means to an end… a way to serve the nation… that rape and sex and children were a higher calling.

Not just Saudi… other places too.

The only solution is education.

I’m sorry you had to go through that.

I worked for 3 years in the US with a primarily female staff… of 14 people I worked with about 9 were female… my manager was a female and at some points in time I also pretty much had female room mates.

This might be shocking for you to hear from a muslim, and a Saudi… but I never once, made a sexual move, let alone an inappropriate comment towards any of those women.

I asked one of them out once, a muslim from Tadjikstan… she said yes when I asked her and then stood me up … I got the hint … she was being nice when i asked her because there were other people around … some people who we work with …etc so she didnt want to turn me down in front of them… but at the same time she didn’t want to go out.

Never bugged her about it… didn’t even ask her ‘where were you on friday’

You can’t force people to be with you or want to be with you… it just doesn’t work that way. I continued to see that girl at work everyday and we had a positive and productive relationship… 5 years later this thing called facebook comes around and we are still friends on there too …

There you go, a positive example… Saudi guy not stalking a girl. Asking her out. Getting stood up. Not making a show of it. and things work out.

I can’t say it was easy to do all of that… as Saudi’s we’re not conditioned to talk to girls or date or ask them out… Haram.

Having no experience with that, we are even less prepared when the girl says yes or if she shoots you down or stands you up.

Worse of all, what happens if you do start dating then… marriage ? engagement ? dating ?

Nobody knows…because in this society those social norms dont exist.

There are girls you are related to
There are girls that are off limits
There are girls who you hear about your friends using for sex.

If that’s your entire ‘female paradigm’… ??? where are your female friends, where are your female co-workers… where are the females that come into your life at an authoritative position like a boss, a coach or an advisor (where you are not always the dominant party by default because you are the man).

There is something to be said for less segregation in Saudi coupled with increased education and awareness…. but it’s not just Saudi and we are not all like that.

*Opinions stated her are my own personal view* Don’t take this as a Saudi said this, or a muslim said that. this is 100% Haitham and I don’t define myself entirely by either of those labels.

Muuna,
are you pointing your finger to HELLOTHERE?

@Haitham, you have explained yourself so well. My mother says girls who don’t smile much don’t make the list of candidates. At the end of the day its only marriage and eventually some girl will end up with some guy who loves her the way she is without wearing make up and trying to hard and of course for been a non-conformist in a society where all Arabs are expected ‘to follow the herd’.

@Haitham wow I never realised the arranged marriage process was like that for you guys, I’m Indian and I’d always assumed it was similar. Girls have a very active search party too, what my sister and I call ‘the granny network’. So it’s not about being seen and getting on mental lists, it’s more that my grandma will say “yeah, we’re looking for our grandchild” and reel off a few pertinent facts and then one of her mates will go “well, so and so is looking for their son and X, Y and Z are compatible!” so connections get made that way. So if I hadn’t found a fiance in university I’d have been able to specify that I want someone who’s lived in Britain long enought to get pretty westernised and is happy for me to work. Efficient system I reckon.

I’m learning things today!

@Haitham Al Humsi
@Haitham Al Humsi ur comments were actually entertaining never knew that’s ow it worked in Saudi .

@Nithya …

What you’re talking about exists… the mothers drop hints… but it’s not an active search campaign if you can call it that … it’s a polite suggestion … but not a concentrated active effort.

It’s usually the guy’s family that has to take the step forward… so you can make suggestions to them , or drop hints or bait them …. but if they don’t ‘take the bait’ it’s not like the girls family can go (culturally , islamically it’s ok but culturally we don’t do this) …it’s not like the girls family can go and ask for the other family’s son in a reverse proposal or a reverse arrangement.

Like i said islamically it’s very clear that marriage is holy and good and that if a girl wanted a guy or thought he was a good person, that there is nothing wrong, or bad or unbashful about her (family) initiating contact with the guy and his family… culturally we don’t do that because it looks desperate, and if the guy turns out to be not so great he walks all over the girl… because she came to him … in any culture, the guy has to chase … it makes things interesting …

The ‘soft suggestion’ usually goes like this

“Hi , oh this is my daugther Claudia, she JUST graduated college (ie she’s in marrying age) … etc .. small talk”

Later in the evening when the girl is not around and it’s just the two moms at the same gathering

“So, how are your boys doing? (if she knows she has boys…)

if she’s a first acquaintance it’s more like

“So do you have any kids …” followed later on by “and how old are your boys?” and possibly followed by “Oh so he’s about 2 years older than my daughter Claudia”

So that’s it … the point is made … this is my daughter, here are the quick facts, you’ve seen her in person, hopefully she’s impressed you and I’ve also framed her as within the age group of one of your boys…

The other mom should get the hint… but that’s the end of the pursuit … and weather or not they act on it is totally up to them.

The other way I’ve seen this done is what one of my aunts does… every daughter she has gets two big graduation parties… one after they graduate highschool and one after they graduate their bachelors…

Kind of like a debutant ball… everyone gets invited… the girl is obviously dressed up and done up because it’s her special night … all the moms in the extended network get invited including all of the girl’s graduating friends AND their moms…

It’s kind of expensive… maybe 300 people show up … my aunt holds it at a ball room or a hotel… but I know for sure that maybe 85% of her motivation for throwing these events is to signal to the extended community around her that her daughter is coming of age, is ready for marriage, and to have them see her in a positive light where she has just graduated, is 100% happy, optimistic about the future and is totally dressed up…

Kind of setting the mood for positive things to happen.

Those are the two main ways that I’ve seen girls actively try to go after marriage …. maybe there are others… im sure there are girls here that know more about what goes on inside those ‘closed’ (to me at least) female gatherings…

I have to say, I like what my aunt does and how she does it… it can get kind of expensive though… im sure there are more frugal ways of doing it… but the idea of that kind of party, and the choice of an extended guest list (obviously targeting networking) seems like a good idea for the way the culture is around here.

@Sarah love your comment… I hope we all find our match

Glad some people are entertained

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsqJFIJ5lLs

@Mona sorry to take over your blog…

mona,haitham and all,
grow up,
don’t waste your precious time.
concentrate on how to succeed in life.
time is precious.
god bless

65% intelligent youngsters use their mind by wasting their time talking and discussing about nonsense.

Only 20% of these intelligent think tanks utilize their brilliance about how to become success in life and to be useful to society…

That’s why only few brilliants become success in life. (Some become industrialists, some sportsman, some scientists, and some in other fields).

Remaining brilliants live like a waste of times. Living inside their own built fence. They also attract some other like minded youngsters in their circle blaming and discussing about not useful things.

15% never use their mind in any proper way, they either become beggars, poor or criminals or notorious.

Are you one of 80%, 20% or 15%?

correction
Are you one of 65%,(65%) 20% or 15%?