Womenomics
ABC News' Claire Shipman and the BBC's Katty Kay on women, work and what it really means to "have it all."
Claire Shipman is Good Morning America's Senior National Correspondent. She covers everything from politics to international affairs to family issues.
Katty Kay covers American politics and society for the BBC. She can be seen in the US on BBC America.
Claire and Katty have a new book called Womenomics. For more information visit the web site www.womenomics.com
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Women Rising in Iran
June 17, 2009 10:10 PM
A woman involved in protests in Tehran on June 17 (Faramarz)
Claire and I have been in San Francisco for our Womenomics book tour and I feel very far away from the events in Tehran but I can’t stop thinking about those pictures out of Iran. It’s not just the crowds, and the thrill of people demanding their democratic rights, it’s who’s in those crowds - it’s the thousands of women taking part that amaze and excite me.
I know, many are dressed head to foot in black covering and, to a Western eye, that makes them look repressed and inaccessible. It’s easy to write off a society that forces it’s women to dress like that as backward and hopelessly sexist - and there is some truth to that argument - but that makes the fact that these women are out on the streets, womaning the baricades, as it were, even more extraordinary.
I grew up in the Middle East, in the mostly sunni countries of the Persian Gulf. In Saudi Arabia, my mother was banned from driving. She sometimes disguised herself in a man’s checkered headdress and drove anyway. But it could get us into hairy scrapes. I vividly remember sitting in the back of my parent’s car as a 12 year old, driving from Jeddah up the steep mountain escarpment to Taif, and another car trying to force us over the edge of the cliff because the driver had realized the “man” at our wheel was not all he seemed to be. Despite that narrow escape my mother still insisted on driving, out on the flat, unpopulated desert tracks, just to feel the independence of being at the wheel again.
Mum worked as a journalist in Jeddah for the Arab news and would sometimes turn up for interviews in government ministries only to be told that she was the first woman ever to have set foot in the office - even the cleaners were all men.
If life was tough for my educated, career minded mother, it was much tougher for her female Arab friends. They were often confined to a life of seclusion at home, surrounded by children and other women but with almost no contact with the outside, male world. In Saudi Arabia, women still can’t even travel in a car that isn’t driven by a male family member.
So, to see all those women, taking part in this mass demonstration of power and freedom of expression, even if they are dressed in black covering, is remarkable. In fact all the more remarkable because of the constraints those coverings can imply. I have my doubts about Mousavi’s real reformist credentials, but the sight of his wife standing by his side on the car in the middle of the demonstration yesterday suggested that at least in the field of gender equality, his heart is in the right place. And she has been a strong supporter of his campaign. So, don’t get sidetracked by what these women are wearing (and many after all are in simple headscarves, pushed back in that sassy Iranian fashion to allow as much hair uncovered as the religious authorities will tolerate), just seeing them out there, marching alongside men in this protest, is a huge step and suggests a culture very different from that of other nations in the region.
We always hear that Iran has one of the most pro Western populations in the Middle East. When I see the picture on the frontpage of T/S today - that is all the evidence I need.
Womenomics translated into Farsi - coming next!
Katty
June 17, 2009 | Permalink | User Comments (3)
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How brave of your mother. I admire her.
If you notice, the women are not all in black on the streets. I wonder if the colored scarves you see are another sign of protest. I mean even painting your nails will get you in trouble, so I imagine saying no to black is a powerful rebellion.
amy c
Posted by: amy cross | Jun 18, 2009 12:39:15 AM
Your article seemed very quasi-intellectual. Saudi Arab culture is vastly different from that of persian values. Even their Islamic government regimes and educational endownment of the state in the people is different. You are entitled to your opinion in saying that they both are repressed but I think you need to research more when you compare your Saudi childhood experience with that with the situation in Iranian female protestors. I'm a South-Asian Muslim women and I've had to correct on more than one occasion Westerners that Islam and Muslim culture varies in different countries - Muslims in Indonesia don't practice like South Asians. And neither of the two have similar cultural practices as Muslims in Africa or Middle East.
Thanks and good luck researching!
Posted by: Maria | Jun 24, 2009 3:23:17 AM
Correction: " I'm a South-Asian Muslim women and I've had to correct on more than one occasion Westerners that Islam and Muslim culture is the same in different countries - Its not! Muslims in Indonesia don't practice like South Asians. And neither of the two have similar cultural practices as Muslims in Africa or Middle East."
Thanks
Posted by: Maria | Jun 24, 2009 3:25:02 AM
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