Word: tunisia
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This environment affects the way Tunisian men see Western women. Female tourists in Tunisia often encounter the behavior that stereotypes of Arab men promise them. A conversation that starts in a friendly tone frequently ends with the woman abruptly walking away, or even shouting to be left alone. Tunisian men often cannot cope with women not submitting to their will, and a polite "no" from a Western woman is akin in this respect to the rebellion of an adulterous wife...
...what extent this explanation is valid is debateable, but relations between the sexes in the Muslim world are changing, especially in Tunisia, and this "sensitivity," whatever its causes, is easing...
...happens gradually and does not result in the untempered, immoral freedom they see in the conduct of Western women. Some spoke in vague terms of upgrading the status of women toward some Islamic ideal. But they could offer no historical model for this, and its realization is doubtful because Tunisia, a French protectorate until 1956, has become even more subject to Western influences since independence. More tourists are coming, more Tunisians are travelling, prolonging their schooling, and coming under the sway of Western attitudes and goods...
While the cult of masculine honor is giving way in Tunisia, the void may be filled all too predictably by the cult of materialism. In the modernization process it is unlikely that in Tunisia, probably the most secularized of Muslim nations, Islamic considerations will provide much competition to the seduction of the West in shaping the ultimate directions of the liberation of women, or most other trends for that matter. This is the price that many developing countries have...
...Tunisia is already a little too westernized for my tastes. I had hoped it would be more exotic, more traditional. Those women at the airport excited such hopes prematurely. Next time I fear they will greet me in miniskirts. Or maybe they'll just decide not to come...