Where Men are not Allowed

When I was on a study abroad in Jordan, there were many times when I was not allowed to participate in activities because of the fact that I'm a woman. These ran the gamut between extracurricular activities to merely traveling alone.

I hated it.

We were required to write journal entries about our experience and have them reviewed by the study abroad director. I wrote about how unfair and awful it was that I wasn't allowed to do so many things on the basis of my gender, sometimes in quite colorful language. The director was Kirk Belnap and he was amazingly patient with me. When we met to talk about my journal entries, he pointed out that though there were many places I couldn't go - certainly many more than I was used to having been raised in a western country - there were also places I could go that he and all the other men on the trip would not ever be able to go. Homes in the middle east have a formal sitting room for guests and an informal interior area of the home where only close friends and family are allowed to go. He told me that the fact that I'm female meant I had the ability to see, experience, and participate in conversations of un-veiled women in the inside parts of the home. I hadn't considered that.

Later I returned to Jordan and lived for about four months with the Hammouri family. The only consistent times I was able to leave their house were on trips to school and church. I was rarely alone. The Hammouris literally treated me as one of their own daughters. I slept on a mat in the bedroom with all the other daughters (two of them on mats, two on a queen bed): Alaa2, Senaa2, Hibba (my age), and Momina (younger). The brothers Ahmed and Mohammed (both younger) slept on the internal family room's couches. The house was the lower level of a small apartment building and you probably have the sense that it was not very big - it wasn't. The biggest and nicest room in the house was the guest sitting room, with many fancy chairs and a large table for serving people. There were two bathrooms, but only one with a toilet. I entered the parents' bedroom only once, walking in only a few feet because mama Hammouri wanted to show me something (I can't remember; maybe jewelry?).

Could a man have ever had this kind of experience?

The reason I was able to live with them at all was because they were friends with Nedal, a member of my church from a nearby village. They knew how he lived. They had an implicit trust in me, that I would follow the same moral code that they did, especially no sex or alcohol. They told me this point blank.

The other reason which they didn't tell me but didn't need to was that the ages and genders of their own children were an appropriate match. I was 19 and Ahmed was 15, the only possibly dangerous combination (Mohammed was 10 or so, I think?). Ahmed was tall, very broad shouldered, and just large - I guess I wouldn't say fat. He was also very immature. Some of his friends hadn't gone through puberty. His English was a disaster. He was always playing and telling jokes. He was very nice to me, and I treated him like a brother. I also didn't spend any time with him alone.

There was never a chance I'd exert my very real flirtation energy on Ahmed; there was another Arab guy who I met on campus from a culture (Syrian) that was less stifling - a fellow international student who could relate to me. He spoke lovely Arabic (of course), could put a sentence together in English tolerably well, had some life experience, was physically very attractive, and was extremely kind and sweet to me. I guess I got "the full middle eastern girl" experience, complete with the clandestine on-campus dating. I witnessed this every single day by others.

I participated in a wedding for some cousin or friend when I was there. A few days beforehand all the women did this thing with henna - not the fancy design drawing thing, but something else that I only vaguely remember as "messy". It was inside the private home area of the upstairs neighbor's house.

The Hammouris often had guests. Hijabed women would come in to the house and de-hijab. I visited them dressed in totally normal, ubiquitous looking jeans and t-shirts (long sleeved, but that was the norm). Their beautiful hair. So much attention was placed on their makeup and hair. Sometimes I was really confused about that - I got the eyeliner thing but the hair thing? You're just going to cover it anyway.

I learned how to put on a hijab. I saw my Arab sisters do this every day. They taught me. In fact, most of what I learned was through observation. I was some kind of dissatisfied ethnographer fly on the wall.

It was excellent for language learning, that's for sure.

***

100, 200 years ago in our culture, you'd be able to clearly define the separate roles of men and women in the western world. But now?

Now I live in a world where some of my closest friends are men. How can this be?

Well, it started out when I decided to blog about an extremely niche topic that I didn’t actually know that much about: Czech genealogy. Eventually I realized that because Czech genealogy (more than other kinds of genealogy) is a really fun linguistic puzzle, it would serve me really well to like, actually learn Czech. Haha.

I recently downloaded this videomessaging app at the request of my friend who wanted to message me that way. When I first downloaded it, it connected me to this group which included 9 other women - my sisters in law (plus Jules and Katie who are honorary sisters in law, I guess). These women are gorgeous wives and mothers (except Ella, who is Danny’s 17 year old sister) and I see them a maximum of twice per year.

A fun fact: last time we all hung out together was in 2016 in Las Vegas on a girl’s trip to a resort. They teased me for sitting (in the shade - I didn’t want a sunburn!) by the pool while reading, “Deciphering Handwriting in German Documents.” Yeah, that is objectively a funny contrast. Har. Har. The other funny contrast was that was one of the first times Lukáš decided to text me, ever. The subject? Czech nationalism. 

Can you even imagine these women (who I love) choosing to talk about that? Well, I can’t.

When I opened the group, there were tons of messages from these women - all of them about 10 seconds to 2 minutes long (and none of them about Czech nationalism, predictably). Almost all of the messages were from within their homes or cars. I watched them all, and they really made me smile. It felt good to be included. There were children in almost all of them - some of them were even sent by children.

The thought of communicating with my male friends in this way is terrifying to me. Actually, to be honest, there are really three competing voices in my head: “NO! I can’t handle that!” [fear and trembling]. “I shouldn’t, so I want to!” [rebellious Kate?] “I feel like I shouldn’t, but why in the heck is that the case? I videochat with men all the time. I have to figure out why this could be!”

Like, is it the real time, the audio, the video, or something else?

	time delay	audio	video
phone call	real time	yes	no
instant messaging/texting	asynchronous both because there is always a delay between your brain and your keypad/board, and you can choose to respond later	no	no
video chat (skype, hangouts, facebook video)	real time	yes	yes
video messaging (marco polo)	can be both asynchronous or “live” (but really, if the time delay is 10 seconds you would never *actually* know)	yes	yes

This table really makes it seem like there must be additional factors other than real time, audio, and visual at play, since I am equally comfortable video chatting with men as with women. What could they be? Some ideas:

	Is the information saved and viewable later?	Can I be doing something else at the same time?	When do I tend to use it?
phone call	no	yes	typically while cleaning or driving long straight roads when there’s no rain or snow
instant messaging/texting	yes	yes	while breastfeeding, when I should be doing something else - really anytime
video chat (skype, hangouts, facebook video)	no	no	while sitting at my computer or in front of my phone
video messaging (marco polo)	yes	no - but kinda.	pretty random parts of the day doing normal, boring things

My current hypothesis is that for me, somehow, and I don’t really know how or why, I have a separate internal family room where men just are not allowed. I spend most of my day isolated from other adults. The women in my life don’t even usually see this space. They don’t go in my bedroom when they come visit. We don’t spend our time together in real life folding my laundry or cleaning the toilets; that time is intentional. Usually we just sit and talk, or passively watch kids and talk.

I guess the reason why marco polo attracts my demographic is that it can include the young people in our lives that are always around. When I’m texting, it’s all in my head. My voice is not even spoken aloud. It’s just mental, in my mind. My children can’t participate. When I’m sucked into my phone, I’m not paying attention to them.

The other thing is, it’s so fast. The point of no return is record. You can delete messages but not until after they are sent. People can watch you while you are recording (well, I guess nobody would actually know for real if you were speaking in real time, would they. I guess there is likely some tiny delay because why not?). As soon as their message is done, the camera zooms in on you. Super disconcerting when I’m nursing a baby and playing with my phone, which is most of the time. It’s bad enough in google hangouts or skype that I (or my baby) can accidentally hit the “video chat” button - but if I were communicating with a guy friend, that would send. In all its...glory. Ugh.

I fully realize that my guy friends can (and probably do - I know that *I* do) reread our texting conversations later. They often feel really different to me, rereading them. First of all, it’s a whole lot faster. I catch things I didn’t before, “Oh! He probably meant x. I didn’t realize that because I was typing.” It’s usually, but not always an exercise in I-am-such-an-idiot.

But how would I feel if my guy friends could (and probably would) rewatch a video of me? Especially a video of me in my really personal spaces - my bedroom!? I don’t necessarily have to be in my bedroom folding laundry, or standing in front of a pile of dirty dishes, or in the car with my kids, but let’s be honest: that’s probably where I’d be because that’s where I spend most of my time.

What about how I look? I don’t usually make a big fuss about what I look like before I videochat with someone (unless I’m going to be skyping with my in laws; it’s too embarrassing to not look at least a little bit put together in front of my mother in law) but in my personal spaces, I guess I care about that kind of thing even less? Kids constantly touching me all over with their sticky, moist hands. What if the camera angle is funny and gets too much of my body in it or something like that? Sitting in front of my webcam or phone cam is a known quantity - but moving around?

My voice (ie what I say) is definitely different through text vs. real time audio. When I videochat, I sometimes don’t really know what to say, which in me usually manifests in talking too quickly about random things.

There’s only one man on this planet who I can talk to in real time totally freely, and that is my husband. He’s always allowed wherever I am.

It’s okay that my male friends are not allowed in some spaces where my female friends are. It’s just so weird to me to realize that, like in the middle east, I too have an internal area which is only accessible to my female friends and husband. I don’t know why it’s this way, but it is.

Hmm. Weird.