I Wish I Was Less Surprised..... (Especially By Something So Good!)

Evelyn and I with some Egyptian friends we met in a park. We shared a picnic lunch and talked. These are just some of the amazing Egyptian women I have met here that I am inspired by!!

As I was preparing for this semester, one of my biggest fears was that my gender would cause me to be uncomfortable or exhausted. I was kept up at night wracked with anxiety about what I would do or how I would react in the face of possible harassment or abuse. I feel almost silly now, looking back on it all. Although I have been on the receiving end of a few catcalls and whistles personally, since being here in Cairo, it is less than or equal to the amount of harassment and catcalling I faced growing up in almost rural Idaho.

I want to acknowledge that is just one experience: mine. Just because I have had a positive one so far doesn't mean that everyone who has ever been to Cairo, Egypt has experienced the same. I also want to acknowledge that my experience has been deeply shaped by my race (white) and my citizenship (American). Both of these things give me some privileges not even afforded to all men here in Cairo, let alone all women. However, no amount of nuance I add makes this experience less worth sharing. I know that if I had heard experiences like mine, it would not have fit in with the rest of the cultural narrative told about the Middle East. This makes experiences and stories like mine even more necessary. No culture, especially one as beautiful and amazing as this one deserves to be defined by a single narrative, especially as bad and false as this one. Looking back I wish that I hadn't believed in the representation of Middle Eastern men as esoteric and backwards. I wish I had questioned my prejudices and fears with logic and what I know to be true about human nature. But mostly, I wish I was less surprised.

Here in Cairo, I have been cherished simply for being a woman, albeit a white, American one. Despite being in one of largest metropolises in the world, elements of the communal culture are so very present. When I am lost on the metro, older men will stop to help give me directions to the right platform, as if I were their daughter. My womanhood is almost treated as sacred when I get on a metro car full of Egyptian men. These men decrease their own physical comfort and personal space for the sake of mine, standing on top of one another in order to leave a large bubble of space around me. Taking belly dancing lessons has reminded me that I am embodied in the most positive way. This is one of the first times in a while that I have had to think about what my body is doing that is not for a negative or health related reason. My Egyptian female friends have reminded me that most men are very very good here in Egypt. My Egyptian male friends prove it, not through patronizing shows of chivalry, but instead through a presence the communicates my dignity. In the place of harassment, I have found honor.

 Although my gender is the first thing that is noticed about me, it is not because I am seen as a sexual object. Instead, it is because this is the first time in my life that my gender and my humanity have not felt so deeply separate. Growing up I felt like I either needed to choose to be good at being a human or good at being a woman. Here in Egypt, I no longer have to continue the façade that being a woman doesn't impact my identity. I have grown up in so many neutral spaces, that to be in a gendered space feels like a breath of fresh air. I am done pretending that I am a 'brain on a popsicle stick' (thanks to Heather for that quote), and instead I can stake my claim as the woman of intelligence, emotion, and wit that I am.