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We think we have come so far in the battle for equality. We are
fools to think as much.
Zahira Massari is one girl I am focussing on in particular for my
thesis. She is seventeen with a rapier wit and huge ambition, very
unlike any other girl of her age that I have met, with short spiky black
hair and a lip piercing, though both of these she covers in public for
her own safety. She is fortunate to have grown up in an unusually
liberal family; her father works in the Cairo Museum as an expert on
Ancient Egyptian funereal practises and her mother is a nurse. Zahira’s
parents have done everything they can to ensure she gets through high
school, and university is the next challenge. With the
WWF
, I am
helping her apply for scholarships, particularly to Cairo University
where she wants to study Archaeology like her father. Zahira is very
active online too, a member of various feminist groups on Facebook
and a staunch supporter of the Arab Spring. She is very politically
aware and if not for her love of Egyptian history and archaeology, I
would have advised her to pursue a career in politics or international
relations, probably with a feminist angle.
By contrast, Aisha has a much harder time of it. Her family is very
strict, particularly in regards to Islam and its tenets on appropriate
feminine behaviour. Aisha wears a niqab at all times – it was only
after a few meetings with me that she felt comfortable enough to
remove her face veil but her hijab stays on all the time. I wouldn’t
mind except that I feel that she is wearing such veils under duress.
Her hijab she willingly wears as she is a devout Muslim but she hates
her face veil. Aisha is not nearly as ambitious as Zahira (the irony is
not lost onme as Zahira’s ambitions are perfectly normal in Australia
– one is practically expected to go to university) and simply wishes to
be trained as a midwife and be able to support herself independently.
She was nearly married off at fourteen but then her family rescinded
the engagement – her prospective husband wanted her to drop out
of school and her parents thankfully rejected such a proposal. She
wishes to marry one day and have a family – but wants to be an
independent person in her own right (and for her future husband to
respect that), so becoming a midwife is a smart career for her to
pursue without compromising her faith.
By comparing Zahira’s experiences to other girls her age who
have not had the same opportunities, (and I will be following her,
Aisha and another girl named Shada throughout the next few years)
Incandescent
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