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Published: September 20th 2006
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Liz outside the Citadel Mosque
She had to put on this cape because her sweatshirt-jacket was too tight This is a kind of continuation of the covering/clothing theme from last time I (Sorry! I had about 5 hours of pure people watching this weekend and that's just what is most apparent usually)...but with a bit of a didactic ending 😉
So Friday I went to a concert that was being held on Greek Campus (one of the two enclosed areas of campus) kind of like a welcome thing for students. It was supposed to go from 3-10ish with the main band on at 8--so we got there at 7:30. Of course, since the main singer is middle eastern (an egyptian dude's stereotype, not mine....thought I'm not negating its possible validity ;o) ) he was literally three hours late....so I just sat on these big steps and watched all of the AUC students interact.
The guys wear similar stuff as those at Penn: nice jeans and a polo or lacoste shirt, or many wear random western t-shirts. Some of the ones we have noticed read such things as: "D and G" (which usually stands for Dolce and Gabbana) with "Dollars and Girls" written underneath; "define girlfriend"; "I put the STUD in student"; and "pour some sugar on me". I haven't seen one single guy in sweatpants or warm-ups.
The girls are pretty flashy--also wearing mostly designer clothing, even to class. At the concert my friend and i were particularly interested in how dolled up all the girls got, ESPECIALLY the ones wearing hijabs. The favorite thing for them to do is to wear a low cut, tight dress over jeans and an underarmour type top which completely reveals their figure and suggests clevage even if their skin is literally covered from head to toe (except face and hands). The anthropologist in me thinks that maybe this seemingly contradictory dress (the idea of covering as more than a religious claim and more of a conservative cultural tradition, yet still revealing body shape) can be explained by contrasting definitions of what parts of the body are considered sensual. In the US provocative dress can be either really tight clothing or really revealing--especially the torso (skin wise). Sure, a lot of beauty products are focused on hair also, but a girl wearing her hair down vs. up isn't necessarily going to accused of provoking interest from males. So one theory I have about this apparent paradox is that in different cultures different parts of the bodies have carried the symbol of a woman's fertility or sexuality, especially hair and skin---after all, female peacocks make the males parade around showing their feathers so she can judge which is worthy of being her mate (discolored tail feathers can show sickness or parasites.....)random, sorry--so why shouldn't males judge women by the state of their hair or skin? Maybe here they don't consider tight clothing as sensual as hair, eventhough it is opposite to us. This was my reasoning but then I read the school newspaper and one of the articles was an editorial where a girl was describing how she had just made the difficult decision to lose the hijab (although wearing it in the first place had been a very easy decision--she believed it's what Allah wanted her to do). She said that people were so set in their stereotypes of a veiled girl that they were always taken aback by her liberal beliefs. Her friends wouldn't talk about sex, drugs, or alcohol in front of her; people assumed she was a "non-educated...quiet, meek, human vegetable" and were astonished by her ability to speak English so well; others said "What?! You do not condemn non-believers to Hades?" or "You think women should have the option to abort a child?" and couldn't believe her answers. In the end she just got sick of proving herself. So now I'm thinking maybe the girls who wear really fashionable and tight clothing but still cover, are just trying to balance out how people judge them and their liberal ideas with their desire to practice their religion as they see fit. (Side note: I met a girl today that was in Glamour magazine as one of the top ten young activists in the US--she covers and won't even shake hands with males, yet is very liberal and passionate).
Anyways, so before the concert I was judging (I admit) their clothes, and I noticed how much I felt like I was at home or at Penn: what everyone was wearing, the way people were acting around their friends, dancing to the DJ, etc. And, when the concert started they all pulled out their camera phones--one of my pet peaves, but that's neither here nor there--and I just laughed. I know this is a very western school and that many of the kids have tons and tons of money (don't get me started on that issue) and probably went to American schools (in the US or abroad), but as I am here I am coming to the realization more and more that, as Brit says, "people are people are people." I do think this is true for the most part, and is one of the reasons that I don't really feel like I am in a foreign country sometimes--which is almost disappointing (despite the language barrier--though it could also be that I am a travelled brat--not to be confused with worldly); but more than that, being at AUC, where the kids probably have more money than at Penn, and at the same time being in the middle of downtown Cairo, makes me realize that if there is any line that we can draw between us it's not because of race (which doesn't exist), nationality, ethnicity, gender, or religion...but it is definitely socioeconomic. I am not uncomfortable at AUC because i am used to a very privileged atmosphere in the midst of a huge city with lots of poverty.
But I didn't come here to have that same experience, and I especially don't want to be comfortabe living in luxury surrounded by poverty---makes me feel sick.
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