May 6, 2009
Sex and the single Iraqi girl By Philip Forgit
The look that a man might get to
AL-HILLAH, Iraq
Photos by Philip Forgit
The only woman elected to the Salam Neighborhood Council, Fadima Yakoob Ysef al Zubeydi has an air of formidability.
PROFILES
OF COURAGE
By Philip Forgit
The face of women in Iraq is very different than what Americans might perceive.
IRAQ
There are few if any burkha-wearing women. That is Afghanistan. A majority of women do cover their hair with the hajib and many wear dresses known as abayaa, generally black in color, that extend to the ankles and wrists. Many women are viewed as property or second-class citizens, while others are engaged I R A Q I V O I C ES in business, run for elected office, and work outFormer Rawls side of the home. Here Byrd Elementary are profiles of a few of school teacher those women. Philip Forgit recently returned from an embed with U.S. troops in Iraq, spending three months filming how the war has affected the Iraqi people. Ninth in a series.
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adima Yakoob Yusef al Zubeydi was elected to the Salam Neighborhood Council in Baghdad in 2003. The only woman on the council, her demeanor and physical presence give her an air of formidability. It is obvious from her interaction with the men that she is at least their equal, if not their better, in much of the deliberations. In the meeting, she conducts an inquisition of an Iraqi-American contracting representative over shoddy electrical work at one of the schools American money has renovated. He explains the situation tactfully, but fails to answer the question to her satisfaction. She is blunt in cutting through his words. Asked about how she is viewed on the council, the chairman, standing nearby, interjects, only half-joking, that she is essentially the “co-chair” and a strong voice at the table. Fadima says, with a smile, that “you can find females on councils that are dismissed, but not here.” Fadima was jailed by American forces for six months on suspicion of involvement in the assassination of the previous council chair. She is, according to the U.S. Army unit in Salaam, a member of the Jaiysh Al-Mahdi (Mahdi Army), the militia group associated with Shia religious cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Releasing her was as much a gesture to the community for cooperation as it was an acknowledgement of a lack of evidence to convict her in Iraqi court. By all accounts, since her release she has been a positive force in the Salam neighborhood and also serves on the District Council as Chair of the Civic Society Committee.
In Iraq, women can be leaders in business and society, or treated merely as property
veiled and a boss who was religiously conservative. Under Sadaam, Shia and observance of their religious custom was suppressed. Now, she faced constant harassment over the color of her hair, her refusal to wear a head covering, her jeans and her makeup. On her way to work one day, she was approached by a man who said to her “B!#$h, women should stay at home.” April said that was it for her, “I had spent all these years in college, worked hard and after all that someone called me this.” She decided to leave work. For a time she simply stayed in her parents’ home suffering from depression before deciding to apply for a job with the coalition forces. She was happy to see Sadaam go, feeling that so long as he was in power, the country would suffer under the embargo and the constant threat of an American invasion. When the bombs started to fall, she was elated, hoping things would improve. However, she believes, for women, “it was better under Sadaam; women are second class citizens now”. Now, “even young girls, not just old women wear black and head coverings“. Among the poor, the uneducated, and the religious conservatives, she says “women are property”. She believes “the cultural, political, economic influence of Iran will increase and Iraq will be a second Iran” with IranianIraqis feeling more free to speak Persian and observe and impose their religion on others. She laments the diaspora of the middle class and educated to countries like Jordan and Syria. With the Iraqi government requesting the names and addresses of all interpreters, she is applying for a visa to the United States.
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aila Tahar has been the Regional Manager of the Bank of Baghdad since October 2007. She is based in Al-Hillah in the Babil Province and is responsible for 12 branches stretching from Basra in the south to Kurdistan in the north. She holds the Iraqi educational equivalent of a certified public accountant. Plans for university were derailed when her husband went off to fight in the Iran/Iraq War. After working for several state owned banks, she joined the Bank of Baghdad. Privately owned and based on western banking models, the Bank of Baghdad, offers an array of services and products Laila Tahar that Americans take for granted but that Iraqis, due to the embargo and state control of the banking system, never knew until now---ATM machines, direct deposit, debit cards, credit cards, and online ackie” is an interpreter for the U.S. banking. Loans of all types are made includArmy. Out of an Army uniform, she wears ing “micro-credit loans” which support small western-style clothes and makeup, her long businesses with loans ranging from $2500tresses uncovered. Before the invasion her $5000. Interestingly, Ms. Laila says most loan hair was dyed a fashionable blonde. A pair of submissions are from males but the collateral large lensed dark sunglasses suggests an Iraqi is guaranteed by women in their families. Jackie O while hiding most of her face. Her Ms. Laila believes that women in Iraq are “name” hides her identity, even “inside the equal to those in Jordan and far ahead of wire”. Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti women in status “Jackie” believes times have changed for and career opportunities. She says that in the women and not for the better. She was once a 1960’s and 70’s under General al-Bakr and computer programmer with a B.S. in Saddam Hussein, it was better for women, but Computer Science. When, following the inva- that the Iran-Iraq War changed everything. sion, getting to work became too dangerous, Ms. Laila believes the presence of she took a one year leave of Iranian resistance fighters in Iraq, absence. Returning, she the Muhajadin Khalq, supported by noticed the office had Saddam in the Iran/Iraq War, introchanged and many of her coduced more conservative religious workers had left. The product practice in the country. Back in of a mixed Sunni-Shia marBakr’s time, women were treated riage, her family is well eduthe same as men. Her mother cated; her parents both docworked in the past and neither her tors. She confesses that sisters or mother wore the hejab, though she prays and believe the women’s head covering. Ms. in the teachings of the Quran, Laila wears the hejab. In the past, “Jackie” an Iraqi who she is not very religious, a females went out with their girlinterprets for the U.S. nominal Muslim. It was a friends. Now a male family memshock then when she returned Army. Her image is ber must be present when women to an office of workers intentionally blurred to go out. Ms. Laila attributes the dressed in black, women protect her identity.
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change as much to social change as she does to security. She is hopeful that with improved security this situation will change. “Universities are re-opening and with a closed society opening up to internet and cell phones, the country is opening up to the world.”, she says believing that these developments benefit women. Unlike Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Ms. Laila believes that “Iraqi culture doesn’t prevent women from achieving in any field.”
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mira Ubayid Al-Bakri is on the Babil Provincial Council. A popular politician, Ms. Amira is one of 30 members, one of eight reelected from the previous council. The Provincial Council is charged with directing administration of projects and expenditures and in interpreting the federal laws as they apply to the Babil province. Though like a state legislature, it has less of a legislative role and more of an executive or managerial role along with the Governor who is elected by the Council. The absence of fingernail polish or paint are a sign that Ms. Amira wears the hejab, the woman’s head covering, and the abayaa, a long dress that covers to the ankles and wrists, for religious observance and not simply to conform with social pressure. Observant Muslims must wash Amira Al-Bakri before prayers from the elbow down to the hands and painted or polished fingernails are considered unclean. She acknowledges western perceptions that the “new fashion” is repressive, expressing her displeasure with an Oprah Winfrey show on Iraqi women, but she says it is quite the opposite. Under Hussein’s regime, wearing the hejab was considered dangerous as Hussein was suspicious and fearful of religious conservatives. Wearing the hejab, Ms. Amira says, “is a sign of liberation. The clothes are freeing because you no longer endure the stares of men and can focus on your job and your studies. We are no longer slaves to other people’s stares.” When asked if she would support a law to enforce the wearing of the hejab, she demured, saying that Iraqi society is mixed so it could not be done and that societal pressure was more effective. Now, she says little girls demand the hejab citing her 7 year old niece crying when her hejab was not big enough to cover her hair. Ms. Amira says “no woman is under any obligation or prohibition to wear certain types of clothing and that is freedom“. Comparing the present to General al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein’s time Ms. Amira believes there is improved educational opportunity. She notes increases in family incomes so more women can afford university. She also believes women are “better organized” for academic pursuits than boys noting that 90% of the high honor graduates recognized by the provincial council are females. She cites a recent visit to the Colleges of Medicine and Engineering at Babylon University in which 80% of the medical students were female and a majority of the engineering students were female as proof of women’s access to more lucrative careers.(Following the interview the male interpreter took issue with these claims, saying though the numbers were accurate, boys were expected to work and thus could not apply themselves to their studies .) Ms. Amira traces Iraqi women’s advances in society to the Iraq/Iran War. Much like America in World War II, men left to fight. Women filled the vacumn and so “for this reason, women now demand opportunity”. She notes that in the provincial civil service, there is equal pay for equal work though, as in the United States, Ms. Amira says the private sector lags behind.
acknowledge Dina Muhsen’s interest is empty, almost disdainful. There is no flirtatious smile, not a grin, not a “google eye,” as she puts it. Such a look cannot be given, or at least caught, in the presence of relatives who might accompany a female in a public place. The risk? Societal approbation. Muhsen is assistant to the State Department economics team and a public diplomacy assistant at the regional embassy office in al-Hillah. The 28-year-old is a striking brunette whose facial expression ranges from sphinx-like indifference to a warm smile. Her calm manner, sophistication, intellect and beauty have made her the object of nine unsolicited — and ultimately rejected — marriage proposals from American and Iraqi contractors in the last two years. However, by Iraqi standards, Muhsen is considered “old” for marriage (average age ranges 22-25). Dating, as Dina Muhsen Americans understand it, is out of the question. Dating, for the most part, only occurs following an engagement. Muhsen maintains that societal demands for female modesty in dress, a respect of libido, societal prohibitions and cultural norms regulate conduct between men and women to the extent that you don‘t see dating Americanstyle. Nor, as she points out, do you see the types of social and familial breakdowns you see in the United States. Muhsen admits that there is premarital sex and dating before engagements, but it is extremely rare. “Ninety-eight percent of Iraqi women and men will be virgins on their wedding night,” she asserts. So the question hangs, “How do Iraqis date and ultimately marry?” The delicate dance that governs Iraqi courtship begins with a male showing interest, perhaps in a market where the female might be. She acknowledges interest with a look, but carefully and without attracting attention. Eventually, the suitor’s mother and close female relatives will meet with their counterparts from the woman’s family. If all is agreeable, the woman is “interviewed” by the suitor’s family. If the impression is satisfactory, the male’s family announce their intention. As the negotiations progress, a large gathering of males from the suitor’s family, sometimes 50-100, meet with males from the woman’s family. Eventually it leads to a formal engagement. Only then can the male and female can be seen together in public and can date. Public displays of affection beyond hand-holding are inadvisable. It is very common for Iraqis to marry first cousins. As a result, male first cousins may lay “claim” to their female cousins blocking an engagement of a suitor. Divorce is uncommon and may take years to settle as the tribes and the families attempt to save the marriage. Iraqi males are more likely to take a second wife than divorce. Though allowed by Islamic and Iraqi law to marry up to four wives, multiple wives are uncommon. According to Iraqi males interviewed separately, on the societal fringe is prostitution. More common is the concept of “pleasure marriages” which allow men temporary arrangements outside marriage, particularly when one is away for long periods of time. Though temporary, these “marriages” are predicated on as many as 75 conditions governing conduct. As for Muhsen ’s marital prospects, she is demure except for one request: that he “be a good Muslim.”