Abaya – A Saudi women’s response
She’s smart, experienced, well educated and she’s around my age. She’s also born and raised in Saudi Arabia with experience abroad. She’s been invited to comment. What a response! Her comment is pasted below. Enjoy cultural insights from a woman I respect and admire on many levels. Please feel free to ask her questions by responding to this post.
Grace,
It’s interesting how we perceive things differently as we come from diffrent backgrounds. One of the key lines in this entry is “There are times when I don’t want to be identified from a distance, wear my pajamas and not want to do my hair”. Fair enough, now think of it oppositely, what if those rare moments where you want to be unidentified become your whole outdoor life, not even a choice you can make whenever you want. Think of you “feeling like doing your hair nice” and perhaps show it off a little but yet you can’t? Isn’t it a basic human right to wear what you feel like wearing as long as you don’t harm others?
I would think of me getting ready for a party, all dressed up feeling my beauty that God has given to me and then right before I take off I am forced by the “power of the law” to put a black dress and a scarf upon everything and in a minute transform to be someone else. Someone that does not reflect who I really am, how I think or even look. Besides, don’t men as well have those moments where they want to wonder around in pajamas and not to worry about being attractive? Yet the law gives them a full choice of what to put on!
Originally, Abaya as a notion was meant to make a woman unattractive individual. The mind that first came up with the Abaya or indeed any sort of veil was based on the idea of “if we could make one of the 2 genders looks unattractive then we can retain morality in society” but since it was basically a man’s mind then the Abaya had to go to the weaker and (at that time) non-educated dependent gender (women). Being an insider I would assure that in the origin of Islam, nothing of what we call nowadays “Saudi Abaya” was mentioned. The texts of Quran were clear in promoting clothing decency and modesty without restricting it to a certain type of clothes or indeed a color. It was one of those things which were left wide open to what fits the era one is living.. So it’s interesting that despite our religion’s flexibility we, Saudi women, still forced by power of low to dress like the desert woman who lived at the Arabian peninsula 1400 years ago. I guess it is man’s
interpretations of Islam which always been used to back up different agendas across the years.
Ironically, despite restrictions, the supposedly unattractive outfit was transformed by those young Muslim girls to a mysterious and somehow “hot” dress. Colors, patterns and expensive fabric (what I like to call a woman’s touch) were integrated to it. Isn’t it a nature of a woman to try to look beautiful? Should the Saudi Motawa consider other means for preserving morality? Perhaps Men’s Veil?
Me, Abaya, self portrait
Here I am in the hotel room, day one.
American woman under cover
Let me preface this by saying that Riyadh is one of the most conservative cities in the Middle East. My experience here might be very different from other cities in Saudi Arabia so my observations are confined to this first time experience both in the Middle East and Saudi Arabia and in Riyadh. As I am required to wear the black Abaya I’d like to share my feelings and invite comments.
The mysteries of the abaya! have finally been revealed to me. My trip to Saudi Arabia had me obsessed with the costume change perhaps to the extreme. The idea of covering up my hair and body with a loose black cloak that reminds me of a judges robe in the American court system, fascinated me and I have to say, since I’ve been covering up I’ve never felt more liberated. Walking around the Diplomatic Quarters (kind of like an empty vacation spot with palm trees abound) you have a choice to cover up or not. There are times when I don’t want to be identified from a distance, wear my pajamas and not want to do my hair. This is where these things come in handy. Men look at me wherever I go in the DQ, but that’s true for every woman that passes. It’s a DQ activity and seems to be more out of curiosity. Most of them are after all guards standing outside all day protecting gateways and embassies. A woman walking alone is fair game but without an Abaya and head covering there is just more exposure to stares.
But I feel very safe. Nobody really comes near you or gets in your space or calls after you. Being stared at feels very familiar from my time in Korea and I’m quickly adapting to a very casual attitude about it.
At the grocery store, I know my body language is all off and too much eye contact is making the male cashiers uncomfortable, excited and or/ easily flustered when trying to find prices and count back change. I’m learning to avert my eyes a bit more. Single men don’t have it much easier. They might get kicked out of family sections at restaurants and if they don’t have any business being near woman’s products in the grocery store they might be shoved on (or nudged on).
Women get many exclusive places to workout, play tennis, swim and their own floor in one of the big shopping malls in the big tower downtown. On a side note, walking into the cosmetics store and seeing only men behind each counter was quite different. Imagine all your favorite brands, Clinique, Estee Lauder, etc. with Saudi men offering samples and giving product directions. I bought makeup remover from a very nice man who clearly told me to wait ten minutes before removing makeup, after application. He took his job very seriously.
This was a real role reversal compared to males in American society. Even though there aren’t laws indicating otherwise, certain jobs are still seen as women’s jobs in the U.S. Here, women are coveted as doctors, nurses and educators for other women students and patients.
I guess my conclusion is the Abaya and head covering is a cultural product that is expected in this region. It doesn’t seem restrictive but quickly feels like a part of me. Not wearing it would be like not going outside with your coat on when it’s cold, it just doesn’t feel right.
