The Islamic world, it's no secret, is a man's world. Wait. Let me correct that. The world is a man's world. There is not a place on the globe with a population of greater than 100 that is not a man's world. But in most parts of this man's world, a woman can wear (pretty much) what she likes and can afford, she can go (pretty much) where she chooses and can afford, and she can say (pretty much) what she wants, even if that voice comes in the form of a ballot.
The first person I saw after I passed through customs in Cairo was a woman (I have to assume) in the long black robe and head covering we call a birqua, a rather radical birqua at that, having even the small slit that is usually left open for her eyes covered with piece of black fabric which I hope was transparent from the inside as it certainly was not from the outside. This was my first visit to Egypt. I'd come prepared for more conservative dressing in Cairo, but nothing really prepares you to find that it's real and it's thorough. I noticed that even the woman's hands were covered; she wore black gloves that went to her elbows. When she walked, and her robes swung, I saw that her ankles were covered in what appeared to be beautiful black shaded stockings. Fascinated, I had to almost physically restrain myself from reaching out to touch the soft folds of the burqua's cloth. It looked irresistibly soft, reminding me of the skin of the bat ray in the open tank at the Monterrey aquarium, which is, to date, the most remarkable surface I've ever had the pleasure to be able to touch with my eager fingertips.
Tell a modern Cairean man anything about how Egyptian women are subservient, and he will probably laugh at you. "They dress as they do out of free choice," you will almost assuredly be told. "No Egyptian man can tell an Egyptian woman what to do. He would not eat for weeks if he tried." Even in that statement, something makes me cringe. No one seems to care that there is an implicit suggestion therein that it will be the woman who is making sure there is food on the family's table. And definitely they do not want to hear this from me, the blonde, blue-eyed, wide-eyed Americana.
This is a man's world. Here, unlike some countries where the Quran is more important than the Constitution or where the Quran IS the constitution, women can vote, can drive, are required to attend school for as many years as their brothers. Women are engineers, doctors, lawyers, and mothers. But this is a man's world. Go into any of the teeny tiny shops that line Cairo's teeming streets, and even if it is a woman's clothing store, there will be a man in charge. He is usually sitting. Sitting with his four closest friends, all of whom are now silently assessing me, without a smile, without a single sign of interest, without a greeting. If there is a woman in the shop, she may approach and if she does, I will probably even be awarded a smile that somehow seems real to me. But the team of men, two of whom are probably smoking sisha, one of whom is thumbing through a wellworn copy of the Quran, and one whose eyes very rarely move from the cash register, just watch me. Only one works here. The others, his buddies and or brothers and or sons, are here to bolster him. This is life in the Societe des Cafes. Every shop here is a mosque and a teahouse.
(to be continued)
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