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Guests of the Sheiks is written from the personal perspective by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea about a small Iraqi village called El Nahra. The authors husband, an anthropologist who studied at The University of Chicago visited this rural village. The author spoke of how she was not familiar with the Middle East and Arabic. For this paper, it asks to examine the role of women in the Iraqi village. This paper will also discuss how culture and religion have an impact on these women. The position that these women have in the society and how they contribute to their family and the village will also be a big part of this paper. The beginning of the book has a great reference for cast of characters which includes a family tree of names and short …show more content…
explanations on some of the members of the tribal settlement to help readers follow the families more closely. This paper starts on the topic of how Mrs. Elizabeth Warnock-Fernea is coerced into traveling alongside her husband to a small village where she immediately feels the pressure to fit in or be pressured into seclusion for not conforming to the norms of this small society.
The author and her husband discuss about her wearing an abayah . She opts to talk about this because she has the idea that women will more readily accept her into this village if she wears the customary outfit. In the book, it directly states that Elizabeth feels extremely defensive stating, “Why should I have to wear that ugly thing- it’s not my custom. . .” . She then goes on to feel embarrassed and self-conscious. As they traveled, “half an hour’s carriage ride through splashing mud. . .” they arrived at a house, where one could only stay if they were accompanied by their husband. This shows that women are nothing without their husband and must have a man around to be treated with any type of dignity or respect in public. It was at this house where a lady frowned upon viewing Elizabeth’s outfit and urged her to wear the abayah. The author had one made especially for her because the woman said it would make her feel more comfortable. Assuming she meant comfortable in the aspect of being in the wake of so many other women wearing the abayah’s as she would not feel left out …show more content…
or judged. This obviously shows that outsiders are judged based on the way they are uncovered in a society where the norm is for women to be covered. The book explicitly states that, “an uncovered woman is an immoral woman. . . and the tribesmen ask why a woman should want to show herself to anyone but her husband”. Even though it is not her religion and custom as she stated before, she willingly puts on the abayah, which she found to be a great deal harder to keep on than she had first expected. BJ, as her husband calls her, states that her “principles were not as strong as my desire to be inconspicuous and well thought of in my new home” . Women in this village are viewed as property and if Elizabeth were not to be covered it would reflect poorly on her husband who went to great lengths to be accepted into the town and permitted to live there. Although the author is technically considered an outsider because she is from a different culture, she could also be considered an insider because she is a female in the village because in their respective society and the closest form of relationship is that between female friendships. The women of the town were very harsh against BJ, as she was the newest outcast. They told her that she was too skinny and that thin was not cute. That it was, “. . . better to be fat” . The women are also known to flaunt elaborate gold jewelry wherever they go and this is custom as insurance in case of disaster. They tell BJ that she should, “get a lot of gold jewelry from him while you are still young” . Women’s status on this community is quite small. They are offered three options for jobs, a wife, a teacher and a mullah. Life in the small rural village is far different than what has ever been known in America. Customs show that men and women never eat together. This just shows the social stratification of the two parties. The village is set up where women are intended to do the housework and men are to do the work outside of the home.
There is a paragraph in the book where, “Mohammed asked only one favor of me the first day, . . . repeated over and over again, he asked me please not tell anyone he washed our dishes or he would be shamed among men for doing women’s work”. It goes on to state more of the housework that Mohammed did for Elizabeth. This statement single handedly shows how separated the roles of men and women are in this type of society. From the way that women are viewed in the Iraqi villages as being the homemakers and not being seen doing a man’s job, to how a man would be viewed if he was known to have done women’s work, society norms are drastically different in this
region. This book shows the more conservative side of Iraqi women rather than the freedom and independence which is more common in rural tribes such as this one. The town can be described as centered around men and the seclusion of females from their daily life. Multiple chapters in the book show just how in control the men are. At one point during a wedding BJ points out that the bride does not eat, she then learns that customs prevent her from feasting until after the wedding where the bride and groom have a huge feast and, “If he is a good man, he will bring her fruit and sweets and sherbert” . At the end of chapter twelve there is a pivotal moment where the severity of a man’s control is displayed, “If they had not been (satisfied), the groom had the right to demand that one of her relatives kill the bride on the spot” . Women were not only sectioned off to certain jobs and rights but also how they were viewed. If a man deemed a woman unfit for something, she was without a doubt unfit. In a rural society like the one in the book, customs and societal norms are brought to light on how the culture has not changed for as long as they have inhabited the town. Women are viewed as property rather than their own entities, not allowing them to think for themselves or act as they please. They are just burdens on the men and are set in place by the society they grew up in. They assume all that men are supposed to be in charge because they have always been told that. In the end, the women of El Nahra are condemned to be stuck in the societal way of the rural Iraqi town, never to be anything more than a wife, teacher or mullah and never to be able to make decisions on their own thanks to the dictatorship in the country and the dictatorship in their village.
This book differs from most ethnographies in that it was not authored by an anthropologist. Fernea originally set out to accompany her husband as he completed research for his doctorate in social anthropology from the University Chicago. Henceforth, Fernea did not enter the field with any specific goals, hypotheses, or particular interests. In many ways, Guests of the Sheik reads as a personal narrative, describing Ferneas struggles integrating into a society that has vastly different expectations and guidelines for women. Fernea recalls the culture shock she first experienced as well as her eagerness to overcome it. Her goals were mainly of a human nature: she wanted to feel a sense of belonging, to have friends, and to establish a life in El Nahra. The first part of Guests of the Sheik largely mimics Fernea's own journey to feeling accepted as it introduces readers to the various groups of women who soon become Fernea's close friends and confidants, most importantly Laila, who will later introduce many aspects of Muslim culture to Fernea. Throughout the book, each chapter emphasizes a different aspect of life as Fernea discovers it, or details an important event. As such, readers experience Ramadan and Eid, two staples of the Muslim culture, Weddings and marriage arrangements, discussions of monogamy and polygamy, the Pilgrimage to Karbala, and many other customs
It is important to note that Elizabeth Warnock Fernea herself is a brilliant writer, and her piece of Guests of the Sheik offers a very in debt analysis of an Iraqi village that would not be seen from most outsiders. How while Fernea concedes the fact that she is not an anthropologist she was married to one and the first two years of their marriage they lived in an Iraqi village called El Nahra. Since she lived in a village that has hardly any social contact between men and women, Fernea is able to give us a beautiful account of what the women’s life style, roles, and other aspects of a women’s life in an Iraqi village. While women are not treated incredibly badly there lifestyle was a lot different than the one an American woman would live. One of the primary directions of Fernea’s study are to show how the author could be credible in ultimately idealizing her culture and peoples in this ethnography. She uses her Self authority to convince the reader of that and her interactions with other women. The
Elizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq as an innocent bystander. However, through her stay in the small Muslim village, she gained cultural insight to be passed on about not only El Nahra, but all foreign culture. As Fernea entered the village, she was viewed with a critical eye, ?It seemed to me that many times the women were talking about me, and not in a particularly friendly manner'; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family, and just her husband Bob. The women did not recognize her American lifestyle as proper. Conversely, BJ, as named by the village, and Bob did not view the El Nahra lifestyle as particularly proper either. They were viewing each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize some benefits each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community to understand the cultural ethos and eventually the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea?s ethnography on Iraq?s El Nahra village, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects.
Writing Women's Worlds is some stories on the Bedouin Egyptian people. In this book, thwe writer Lia Adu-Lughod's stories differ from the conventional ones. While reading, we discover the customs and values of the Bedouin people.
In recent years, in the United States, the nation’s view towards Middle Eastern women has been altered, due to, their involvement in domestic and global terrorism. Along with, news of Middle Eastern women being mistreated by men and their society because of their gender. In other words, Middle Eastern women are subjected to gender-based violence and gender inequality, as a result, of their sex. In Anne Meneley’s Tournament of Values: Sociability and Hierarchy in a Yemeni Town, Meneley briefly touches upon gender-based violence and gender inequality, but focuses more on how hierarchy plays a role in the way sociability is developed in Zabid, a Yemeni town. When I read Anne Meneley’s Tournament of Values, I learned that in Zabid, women play a
The first religion and its views on women that will be discussed in this essay is Islam. Islam is a religions founded in Saudi Arabia almost two thousand years ago, by the prophet Muhammad. In fact, Muhammad dedicated much attention towards women in the Koran, the holy book of Islam. However, even though much was dedicated to women in the Koran, it was not dedicated to them in the sense of equality. Women in Islamic culture were apparently much lower on the totem pole than men, "The men are made responsible for the women, since God endowed them with certain qualities, and made them the bread earners...If you experience opposition from the women, you shall first talk to them, then [you may use such negative incentives as] deserting them in bed, then you may beat them (129)." Excerpt...
By her admission the women volunteers of the social welfare organizations were predominantly middle and upper-class. Deeb does not consider how women from other socio-economic groups pursue and engage in piety and modernity, and how they view “authenticated Islam.” As such Deeb’s description of an authenticated Islamic community in al-Dahiyya seems to represent the formulations provided by a privileged class of women. The absence of other socio-economic is coupled with a cursory description of the peripheries of the community. Less emphasis is placed on the inhabitants of al-Dahiyya who are marginalized and excluded from the enchanted modern. A greater study of how authenticated Islam is understood by member of other socio-economic classes and the more marginalized members of the community would have given a greater insight, not only into the development of the enchanted modern, but also the social dynamics which govern
Women in Ottoman society had extremely restricted roles has shown in documents 2, 3, 4, and 1. Document 2 is a chapter of the Qur’an with regards to women’s rights, behavior, and treatment. The Qur’an states that certain action is to be taken in the discipline of disobedient women. The Qur’an claims that disobedient women are to be admonished by men first, then the men should refuse to share their beds with the disobedient woman, then, if they continue, the men should beat them lightly. The
It is a Bible, a book. The Koran gives examples of the ways a woman needs to act in society. A woman is supposed to be there for her husband’s. A husband can marry multiple women and the woman may not be upset. A woman may have a dowry, but it is highly favored to give a portion of it to their husband
Both el Saadawi and Al-Shaykh both show how perception and expression are both affected within the confines of politics, social opportunities, and male privilege depicted in their stories. Whether the reader is a follower of the feminist movement or not, it is very clear and easy to see that these women are not being treated with the respect that any human being deserves. The misogynistic stranglehold on society, especially in this part of the world, is excessive and avoidable in today’s world but it is very likely that the traditional, conservative ways of the past will continue to control and inhibit women from being able to be fully treated as equals for many years to come, perhaps even after this generation has
In the novel She and in the stories of The Arabian Nights, both Haggard and Haddawy explore the expanding gender roles of women within the nineteenth century. At a time that focused on the New Woman Question, traditional gender roles were shifted to produce greater rights and responsibilities for women. Both Ayesha, from Haggard’s novel She, and Shahrazad, from Haddawy’s translation of The Arabian Nights, transgress the traditional roles of women as they are being portrayed as strong and educated females, unwilling to yield to men’s commands. While She (Ayesha) takes her power to the extreme (i.e. embodying the femme fatale), Shahrazad offers a counterpart to She (i.e. she is strong yet selfless and concerned with the welfare of others). Thus, from the two characters emerge the idea of a woman who does not abide by the constraints of nineteenth century gender roles and, instead, symbolizes the New Woman.
Throughout the novel, the reader follows Elizabeth through her struggle to maintain her personal identity, despite what her mother, sisters, and other women in society think of her. Elizabeth enjoys physical activities, such as walking , which is uncommon for women in the society in which she lives. “She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild.” (Austen, 24). The women often look upon Elizabeth negatively due to her behaviour and personality, especially for her outspokenness, which was especially uncommon and unacceptable upon women. “‘Lizzy’, cried...
The Women of the Middle East have played substantial roles for their corresponding countries since the advent of colonialism in the region. Middle Eastern women have worked in all types of fields including medicine, education, agriculture, government, private sector, and even defense. They have kept roofs over their family’s heads while their husbands were away in wars, or even in foreign countries to work in jobs that they could not find in their own countries. The roles of women in the countries of Yemen and Oman are no exception, but while they still find ways to contribute to their country, they care constantly stereotyped, discriminated, and ridiculed by men who are known and unknown to them. This paper will discuss the individual contributions of the women living in Yemen and Oman, and will discuss in further state laws and cultural norms that are affecting the women living in these countries today.
In the middle of the book, gender expectation is going even further down the slide. The book specifies that, “ Nazir Mohammad, is the landowner, has hunting parties. He offers each of his guests a girl, usually a tenant from his land, for the time they are with him. When the man is finished with her, he gives her cash and sends her back to her family” (Staples 154-155). This proves that these women are treated like objects. After the men were done with them, they would send them back to their families and move on to the next
As an Arab American, a Muslim and a woman writer, Mohja Kahf challenges the stereotypes and misrepresentation of Arab and Muslim women. Her style is always marked by humor, sarcasm, anger and confrontation. “The Marvelous Women,” “The Woman Dear to Herself,” “Hijab Scene #7” and “Hijab Scene #5” are examples of Kahf’s anger of stereotypes about Muslim women and her attempts to fight in order to eradicate them, in addition to her encouragement to women who help her and fight for their rights.