Walking While Covered

This is cross-posted with permission from the blog Jeddah Mind Trick. The author is an American Muslim from Detroit, Michigan, who currently lives with her family in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

I heard the car creeping slowly behind me. I moved out of the way to let the driver pass on the road.  My neighborhood has no sidewalks so I had become used to yielding the right of way to cars, bikes, and the occasional mobile French Fry vendor. I was on my daily walk to the grocery to pick up items for dinner. This was before I landed a job, when visiting the produce section of the local market was the highlight of my day.

When I moved out of the car’s way, I continued walking at a leisurely pace. I was sick that morning and my head was swimming with fever. I had insisted on going for a walk against my husband’s wishes because I felt like the fresh air would make me feel better.

Even though I was no longer an obstacle on the road, the car kept up its slow creep. I turned around to look at the driver; I sensed that something was wrong. When I turned, I saw an older man with salt and pepper hair staring back at me.  He didn’t look menacing but there was something about the look in his eyes that made me feel uneasy. I turned around and proceeded to walk quickly toward my building around the corner. But the faster I walked, the faster he drove. I did not want to break out into an all-out run so I stopped cold and pretended to fiddle with something in my bag. He then drove past me and when he was completely out of sight, I walked as quickly as I could toward the end of the block.

After I turned the corner and had walked few yards, I noticed a car driving the opposite way down the street. It was the same man; he had merely driven around the corner and was now driving straight toward me. He turned around and began following closely behind me.  As he approached, he rolled his window down and whispered something to me in Arabic.  He winked.  I turned my head and kept walking into my building. I heard his car stop and he went for the door, as if to get out. I hurried to close the iron gate of the apartment complex. I heard him mutter something loudly and spin off. My heart was beating furiously as I opened the door to my apartment. My husband asked what was wrong and I told him.  He was upset and tried to rush downstairs until I told him the guy left. “That’s it, that’s the last time you are walking to the store,” he said.  “How? Am I supposed to just stay inside for the rest of my life?” I said.

As in much of the modern world, street harassment is an epidemic in Saudi Arabia. Despite strict laws governing gender based social interaction, there are men here who make a regular habit of preying upon women.  Some people will say that a woman can “invite” harassment by dressing provocatively. That morning, I was wearing a niqab, the face covering worn by Muslim women. I was new in the Kingdom and figured that dressing like the majority of the women around me would provide a level of anonymity that would help me in navigating my new city. I wasn’t wearing gloves, but everything else, except my feet, was covered in black.  I wore slippers, simple white rubber flip-flops, on my feet. Though I was wearing niqab, my eyes were still seen, and they were red and puffy from a night spent coughing and sneezing. I had no makeup or perfume on. My abaya was loose, 2 sizes too large, and it made me look like a walking black cloud.  There was nothing provocative about the way I was dressed that day, or any other day on which I have been harassed.

To the contrary, when I venture out in my school uniform, a pink lab coat, no one says a word to me. For many men in this society, wearing an abaya and niqab is seen as more desirable.  Men prefer to have a woman who is covered but there are some who take it to the extreme and fetishize women’s hijab to the point of extreme sexual desire. One of my husband’s best friends, a Saudi, sadly lamented that some men actively seek out women in niqab because they are “sexy.”  For this reason, some men request that their wives not cover their faces because the niqab can cause unwanted attention.  I find this mind-boggling.  It is incomprehensible when you consider that the abaya and niqab are used for exactly the opposite effect.  Predators have taken something that women use as a screen for modesty and turned it on its head.  Being a woman who covers is not a safeguard against sexual harassment.

Over the past year, I have been followed at least a dozen times, harassed in stores, and was even chased by a young man riding a bicycle while I was out with my son.  Weekend mornings are the worst. Saudi culture is generally nocturnal, with many people sleeping after the dawn prayer, awaking after the late afternoon prayer when they start their day.   As such, the streets are usually deserted in the morning and this is when the vultures come out. I have learned to stay inside or travel with my husband when I have to do anything on a weekend morning. I once had to pick up a discarded 2×4 on a hot Thursday morning and threaten a man who followed me for three blocks as I went to pick up bread for breakfast.

It is sad that in a place where there are already few recreational outlets for anyone, but especially women, the mere act of leaving one’s house can be cause for harassment, or worse. There are tales of women who left for bread and never returned, women who took a taxi to a friend’s house and never returned. True, according to Islamic law, a woman should always be escorted by a mahram, or male guardian. That’s perfectly fine, but what about the women with working husbands, elderly mates, or sons that are too young (like mine) to serve as any form of human shield when out in public?

Many people cast Saudi Arabia in a very pious light. Some of my Muslim friends expressed jealousy that I would get to live in a place where Islam is the foundation upon which all interactions are built.  It is true that it is easier to practice certain elements of the religion in KSA. No one looks at you funny when you wash your feet in the bathroom or stop everything that you are doing to walk to the nearest masjid for prayer. But the Yemeni tailor who presses his erect penis on my hand while measuring me for an abaya does not represent Islam. The Saudi man, the one who motions for me to get into his car while I wait for the school bus, is not a representative of Islam either.   Also uncharacteristic of Islam are the free feels that men take while a woman is making tawwaf around the Ka’aba, or the ogling by security guards when buying tea outside of Masjid An-Nabawi.  Sometimes the very men who are assigned to serve and protect women are themselves guilty of harassment. My friend was called a “bitch” by a police officer who tried to touch her while she was out for an afternoon run near her villa. This is not Islam.  This is not true Saudi culture.

I grew up in the city of Detroit amongst a sizable Arab population. The treatment I experience here reminds me of my teenage years. I remember the guys at the gas station who would try to feel up the young girls buying candy and cigarettes for their fathers. I learned my first Arabic word, habibi, when one of the men who worked at the party store used it as his pet name for my 13 year old friend who carried breasts and hips that belied her age.  I am not saying that all Arab men are predators; that would be a racist assumption and untrue. I know many men of Arab descent who are upstanding, protective individuals who are the epitome of manhood. But I would be remiss if I didn’t say there are some cultural elements in the Arab world that can cause otherwise sane men lose their minds.

Being chased down the street is what happens when boys and girls are segregated in schools starting at age 6. It is what happens when all your life you are taught that you are superior, that women’s bodies are shameful, an object meant to be protected and obscured from view. Harassment happens when it is ingrained in you that the basic human desire to interact with members of the opposite sex is thwarted by false impressions of modesty and restraint. Women who walk in fear through streets surrounding the holiest sites in Islam have become victims of a warped interpretation of honor and modesty that forces people to extremes.  Deprivation of any sort can lead to desperation.  Very few people are taught the art of healthy interaction so the product of such a strict society can manifest itself in violent, hurtful, and disdainful ways.