Word: woman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...neared these women it struck me that they did not look mysterious and alluring in their safsaris, as in Arabian Nights or in my fantasies. They looked anonymous and shapeless. Almost every woman gathered the folds of the robe at her throat with one hand and clutched an infant or a bag of vegetables with the other. Their identical, self-effacing garments (which, however, are not religiously sanctioned, and do not veil the face) and their burdened hands bespoke the modesty and servility which characterizes the Muslim woman everywhere...
...every woman in Tunisia is so tradition-bound. In the cities younger women in jeans often stroll together or with boys. As lively and curious as their male peers, they are not shy or afraid of speaking to foreigners. The wealthier and more educated ones especially move about with relative freedom and premarital sex is common among them. But even they are far more restricted than their Western counterparts. One well-to-do, college-educated single woman in her twenties told me of the scandal she caused in trying to procure an apartment...
Aside from the public humiliation he would face, the man is ill-equipped to come to terms on a personal level with such a display of independent will by a woman. During his youth there is little free mingling with the opposite sex. His fiancee is likely to be someone with little choice in the matter or someone who, because of a restricted childhood, lacks a strong sense of what she wants. As a husband and father his word is usually uncontested. At work and at play it is unlikely that he will interact in a more than superficial manner...
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...
While I was there the "National Day of the Freedom of the Woman" was celebrated, which, in view of prevailing conditions, seemed far from the consciousness of most Tunisians. But it would be unfair to say that men are uniformly horrified by and opposed to the trends it represents. They just hope it all 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...