Sunday, September 03, 2006

The Single Arab Woman

The single Arab women is regarded as deficient even if she had a degree from Harvard and spoke seven languages. The single Arab woman is always asked "Why didn't you get married" as if it's always been her choice. The single Arab woman is expected to lower her standards for accepting a man as a husband as she grows older and if she is thirty-something she is expected to accept any man on earth who speaks the same lanuguage and has a job.

The single Arab woman is always the one blamed for being single and people will search thoroughly to invent a reason why men are nor proposing starting from her broken toenail ending with her third cousin who has diabetes. If the single Arab woman lives with her parents she would be the unexpected burden and if she wants to live alone she's a prostitute.

The single Arab woman is depressed even if she's satisfied and she keeps looking at the past to search for any mistake she's done to blame herself for. The single Arab woman is always seen as desparate for men no matter how she's dealing with them. If she's too conservative no man can talk to her and if she's too friendly no man wants to talk to her.

The single Arab man will hesitate to propose for the single Arab woman because he'd think "I'm not her first choice", or "Why the hell hasn't she got married?"
If the single Arab woman wants to hold on marriage until she finishes her degree or focus on work then she's messing up her priorities but if the single Arab man does the same then he's ambitious and thoughtful.

The single Arab woman is just another Arab woman.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

You know Fares,I agree with what you said,but to me any single person is deficient,male and female alike.Marriage,the right one of course,completes your life in a way you can never understand till you do get married,And I am not being sentimental here,but I believe in this institution and hate to see people living alone,wether it's a man or a woman.My mother and I were tlking yesterday and she was telling me how different she feels after my dad passed away,she said,I am not the same person and will never be that same person again.It's sad,but true.

Anonymous said...

Feras, maybe you'd like to change the intro to your blog, since it makes us "Single Arab

Women" a part of the 5% of the world population that you dislike!

Salam, I find the term deficient a bit harsh. I am 37 years old, single, successful (I think :-),

lonely (definitely), and feeling incomplete but not deficient. I think there is a difference!

Being Jordanian adds to the loneliness since I am sure "Single Arab Men" are not as lonely.

I beleive people are divided into two groups, those who get married and those who don't,

and both do that by choice. I don't think you can compare those unmarried with those who

lost their spouses, kind of like comparing apples to oranges. We don't know what it feels

like to be with someone so really we can't greive about it in the same way those who know

do, it is like missing a food one hasn't tasted yet :-), we don't miss it, but we do look forward

to tasting it, and will keep looking forward till death do "me" part, can't use "us", one word

single people avoid using :-)

Every single woman I know can get married tomorrow if she wanted to, but they won't

because they still dream about the fairy tale, the love of their lives, the knight in shining

armour, except now the knight isn't young and probably has white hairs here and there! The

fairy tale continues but with modified details, never compromised details.

I am 37, single, still dreaming of meeting HIM, I beleive in destiny and serendipity, I hate

arranged things and just today I said no to an arranged meeting with a potenial 3arees, two

years my senior, a doctor, well off and good looking, ya3ny el mafrood to run after him, why?

because I still beleive I deserve the fairy tale, yes, at 37 :-)

Anonymous said...

noone,to start with of course you deserve the fairy tale,everyone does ,even after three failed marriages
I 've seen it happen.But allow me to explain myself..using the word deficiency was Fares's choice,I just worked on it.I agree ,incomplete might be a better expression.
My point was that loneliness works on both sexes not only on females.Men might not show it,but they sure feel it.
Pleas notice my use of the word the "right" marriage,not just any.It is much better to be single than in a bad marriage.
And apples to oranges,true,I did say you don't know it till you've tried ,bass the point was is that I wish everyone would get the chance to try the apples:)that's about it..just a simple wish of good luck for everyone:)whoever who hasnt tried the apple to try it,and whoever has his own apple to enjoy it for life.

Anonymous said...

by the way girls waiting for ur fairy tails!! how can be sure its the right person for you.. we all put needs and create imagination for our spouse.. beleive me most of the girls maybe 80% who realy got their fairy tails.. ended up by divorce or a bad relation!!
and something else realy bothered me, eno unmarried girl bet3ish her life and work and study and has a great ambitious, why she should cancel it if she got married!! if she did this y3ni iam sure she didnt marry the right prson and the one who realy deserve her..

All of my friends not most of them ALL of them live like that.. got married and together and work on theri ambitious together, this is right and healthy relation, there is no spirit to work on it alone.. u need someone beside you, so imagine this one ur husband :) great!

the problem not to stay till thirty's and not married - single, the problem is not choosing the right person.. and the right time!!

my aunt got married and she is 42 and now with two kids :) she thougtht that coz she is 42 y3ni iam mature enough and this one is the right one. but it shows that he is not that perfect she thought. even they live a simple life but still not the right choise.

y3ni i dont prefer to stay more than 28 single!! not healthy, working on myslef and iam sure that god is working on my husband so when we meet will be perfect to each other..

Anonymous said...

i thought i'm the only person feeling this way (i'm not an Arab).

i had three proposals but i didn't accepted any of them.

i'm 25 years old, all my friends are married and have kids. i've been feeling so depressed and sad lately.

i'm waiting for the ONE, now i start to feel he's not exist. where is my special someone?? insha'allah, may be i meant to be alone forever.

lonely in Australia

Anonymous said...

Wallah innak 7areega ya 7areega

I loved .. no I adored this post and you are so right about this ..
I am single and I feel everything you have just said ... and the community is just so harsh and people are even harsher

We are all waiting for the right one .. whether men or women .. but when is it destined for this one to appear or pop up in your life; no one can know for sure .. all we can do is work on ourselves to become the best partners possible when we do finally meet ...

It is a combination of destiny and luck .. but time and people do not cut us any slack ... they give us the spinster title and look our way with pity and sadness .. every time they see us in a party or a gathering, they make sure that you do feel how sad they are for you because you did not achieve the ultimate which is landing a husband no matter what his status or background are .. he will be God's gift to you because he released you from your miserable status as a spinster and made you a married woman ... PATHETIC!!!

Adi said...

Thats true.

What about single arab man :)

Adi Azar

Anonymous said...

I think what qualifies as a fairy tale to someone doesn't necessarily qualify as one to another person, on the contrary, it might qualify as a fairy TAIL as Wedad would put it :-), a typo I know, but it does make sense!

Cinderalla's prince might be boring to Snow White, and Snow White's guy might look dull to Layla, and Qais could bore Helen Hunt to death not knowing What Women Want! Everthing is relative!

One can never be 100% sure if he or she took the right decision or made the right choice, I guess this is a package that has lots of stuff in it, good and bad. You can't pick the cashewnuts and leave the rest of the pack there, you will end up eating the 2dhaameh at the end too, I guess this is what being with someone is all about, loving their 2dhaamehs as much as their cashews :-)

Anonymous said...

Hareega you have been tagged by me. Look at
http://batir.jeeran.com/arabic/archive/2006/9/90580.html

Anonymous said...

Hareega Said: "If she's too conservative no man can talk to her and if she's too friendly no man wants to talk to her".

The first part seems to be very true, but if the girl is too friendly MANY men wants to talk to her and hang out with her but NO ONE (or at least the majority) won't think of marying her, because they think she is for everybody! I've heard this term about such "open minded" girls, the guys call her "Jam3eyaa", i.e. she is shared for everyone and cannot be for anyone! this kind of mentality in the Arab world makes you feel disgusted! I am an Arab single man and I hate to deal with the girls like this: "if she is nice to me, then she might be nice to everyone else and hence she is a bitch!"... At J.U.S.T I used to notice cases like this guy is hanging out with two or three girls and laughing slapping hands in Square C and then what! when he wanted to get married, he says , I cannot marry from those girls! he start looking for a girl that is "Conservative"! ..... Ehh! ill-minded that's what I can say!.

Thanks Hareega for bringing this up!.

Zeid Nasser said...
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Zeid Nasser said...
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Anonymous said...

I always think how unfair Arab society is to women, in many aspects, not just this one.

But, recently, I started to realize that this 'pressure system' on both men and women is part of what holds Arab-Islamic society together.... pushing people to get married and continue 'reproducing' :)

Whereas in Europe, for example, the rate of births has dropped to alarming rates... simply, people don't feel the need to marry anymore. A high percentage of people live together, and change partners until it's too late to have kids!

It's just one angle of this discussion, it's not an excuse for Arab society's view of the single woman, but starting a family seems to be a powerful driving force in our lives. Maybe there's more good, than bad, in such a force.

Anonymous said...

salam... I agree that life becomes totally different after marriage and you'll disocver new things about yourself, but how about those people who do not WANT to live this life. They won't necessarily stay alone , i know some women who never got married still they have family around all the time. Some women don't even want to have kids. Why do we suppose that all people desire the same as we do?

none-forever.... I hate the expression deficienct but I feel that it exactly describes the society's view towards single people especially women. IT takes lots of confidence which it seems you have to refuse to accept this fact. Remember that many women -and men- got married and they regretted that till our day.

wedad... so what if u turn 30 and you're still sinbgke. Will you lower your standrads for the future husband? Not the very basic ones, just some of them??

anonymous in Australia... enjoy your life, you might be very lucky that you're still single

Khalidah.... thank you for describing me again as 7areega, anywah i totally agree with you that it's a matter of luck " 2esmeh o naseeb" and you'll never know when you're gonna meet Mr. Right (he might turn out after marriage to be Mr. Very Wrong) but it's all luck. I totally understand your description of how people look at the single arab woman, looks of sorrow as if she has a malignant tumor, while for me as a single guy they look at me differently (lawaish lessatak 3azzabi la tkoon msa7eb wa7deh amerkaniyyeh ya hamel khalas ekhzi el sheetan o itjawaz)

Adi Azar.. thanx for visiting, you tell me.

Sami the scenario you described is typical of the typical man he fools around with women but when it comes to marriage he becomes a different person. To identify this hypocricy look at many Arab men living in america or europe who fool around with many women but when it comes to marriage he comes back to jordan and marries his 17-year old cousin who never left her village le2anha bisseh mghamdah and she's so naiive to know anything about life.

Zaid Nasser that's a very interesting point, what we're seeing is the "side-effect" of the strong family relationship and value systems we have. What we can do is just be a bit smarter and make sure that women's choices need to be respected and single women are not necessarily alone, they live with their families and they are not helpless useless creatures.
On the other hand, I wish that our birth rate will drop to alarming rates. I wish that women will start having 2 kids instead of 5. Rgypt would have done much better with 40 million instead of 60.

Anonymous said...

Hareega, iam sure i'll be the same one before 30 and after 30, maybe the way i think would change. but now iam mature enough to chose the right one and to know whats perfect for me,coz i know myslef enough, i know what i want and i know what i can give for him. and what i want in my future husband majors or minors will stay as still. nothing will change coz me i will not change myslef... i dont know if u got me here!! ;(
and i will not stay single after 30. :D shar bara u b3id !!

Hareega said...

thanx for the reply, best of luck

FATEN said...

you're making us all victims of our society and i think that's wrong.
there's the educatin we get, the career lives we lead the million things we can take on in a single day whetehr we're with or without a spouse. sure society has its suffocating way of pressuring us into marriage as i am discovering but at the end of the day it's our decision to choose to let that affect us or not.

i am a fool for love and i believe in being with someone eventually but it's gotta be according to my rules, not society's but if i never find Mr. FatenRight it doesn't matter...because Single Arab Women are the proudest strongest women i have ever met and my God i pray to grow up into being half the women they happen to be.

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