On being a woman

Most days I do not even notice that I am a girl. It is just a part of my general make-up, like being five foot seven with hazel eyes. Here, it is something I notice every single day. Take today for example, we were having a conference at a local hotel and I walked in the door and every single man in the lobby (sitting there smoking cigarettes and drinking tea) turned and looked me up and down. I am not talking about a subtle glance- I mean they raked their eyes over every part of my body. I've become quite accomplished at ignoring them. What makes it worse is that I was accompanied by not one, but two Iraqi men. That alone should have made me invisible to any stranger. Another example, as Kari and I walked up to the counter to check out of the hotel in Erbil I saw two men sitting in the lobby (smoking cigarettes and drinking tea). One guy saw us and then poked his friend so they could stare at us. It was like we were exotic animals in the zoo. I could understand if we were in the middle of nowhere and they had never seen a foreigner, but this was a very Western hotel. Last week we walked to a restaurant near work and it was brilliant to be able to leave the office and go to lunch. Partly because of the heat and partly because of Ramadan we had not been leaving the office during the day. We walk into the restaurant and there are a ton of tables open in one section and yet my co-worker is trying to find a table in a crowded section. When I point out the uncrowded area he told me that was the men's section. A whole freaking section of the restaurant was dedicated to men (smoking cigarettes and drinking tea). It also dictates how you can do work here. There is a part of my project that deals with conflict resolution in communities that are actively in conflict. No, I am not going to those communities, but somehow I have to get the work done. Someone contacted us about doing a play about reconciliation and I was seriously considering the idea. Then I found out that men and women cannot go to see the play together. Do I have a separate performance for each gender?

I identify myself as a feminist. Even though feminism is now a dirty word. I firmly believe in equality between men and women. I knew that women's rights were not the same in the middle east, but there is a vast difference between knowing and experiencing. I am lucky too because my situation is very different then a lot of women here. I work for an international organization and I'm the boss. My entire staff, except one woman, are men. Quite a few of them tested the boundaries, because I think they expected me to be a pushover. They got a little surprise instead.

On the flip side, I get annoyed when people expect middle eastern women to be feminists. It took women in the United States quite some time before they got the vote and we still only make, what, seventy cents to the dollar. Here we are at the beginning stages of feminism. I know that through example, training and time, things will gradually change. Regardless, I wish men would at least act respectfully, especially since I am not walking around on my own wearing high heels and a short skirt. In the meantime I will continue to be a muted version of myself but sometimes that gets tiresome.