I Experience Sexism: an insight about sexism in the Arab World

       I think sexism is one of the most unproductive, destructive, and threatening ideologies, not only because it separates humans into two narrow ‘genders’, but because it also is abortive: for centuries we’ve been seeing the same samples of men and women give birth to very similar samples of men and women, so we became a herd, of a one man/one woman. We have a stereotype for the man: strong, insensitive, ambitious etc., and a stereotype for the woman: irrational, vulnerable, incomplete, limited, weak, etc. it was only few men and women who’ve managed to escape this stigma, and have their own independent personalities, and they have been fought, brought down, and soaked with hatred. But, most of the people are a part of the big mass: the one man/one woman situation that we witness today, and since there is no renewing diversity, there is no progress: we remain were we are. If humans had been more of a tessellate than a two-brick building, we would have seen a much different present. Whereas, different personalities, different ideas, different actions, offer different results…

      There are slight differences between every person and another, but the fundamental qualities remain the same, which is so dangerous because we become numbers, continuous versions of those who lived before us, thus we see the same consequences and outcomes, and thus we face the same problems.

   And it is not a coincidence, the Arab World has been providing thoughtless controlled robots to the world not out of the blue, but out of culture (and I know I will be understood wrong so, disclaimer: I am talking about the psychological culture not the heritage). The way we raise our kids, turns them exactly into what we want them to be, so as long as we keep telling our boys to have fun, and our girls to be safe, nothing will change. As long as we ask girls to ‘prevent’ and boys to be ‘prevented’ nothing will change. As long as we tell our boys to walk with pride and tell our girls to shrink themselves, nothing will change. As long as we laugh at our crying boys and gasp for our physically strong girls, nothing will change. The bottom line is that boys and girls must be raised the same, both can have fun and be safe, both can prevent other from hurting them and be prevented from hurting others, both can walk tall and proud, both can be shy and awkward, both can cry and both can be strong (not saying ‘cry’ is an opposite of ‘strong’), and most importantly both are humans, who are allowed to do whatever they feel like doing.

    Gender diversity –which might seem ‘immoral’ to many- has been known in most of ancient civilizations (Greeks, Pharos, Japanese…etc.), and that beautiful mixture of humans provided the world with so many revolting, influential, constructive, and most importantly untamed philosophies, theories, practices, lifestyles, values, viewpoints which basically built the world, and manufactured the humanitarian intellect, which developed the arts and sciences. But now, in a world of copies, absolutions, and cultural habits we became dead, and diseased with intellectual paralysis, therefore we are walking towards yesterday, and sometimes I think we’re not walking at all.

 I think the word ‘man’ is very fluid and very flexible, not because anyone had said so before, but because I said so, for I am not defined, I define.

   In history there hasn’t been any accurate definition of what is ‘okay’ and what is ‘not okay’ for a man to do, matter of fact, nobody cared about it. But now, there seems to be a little how-to-be-a-man guide book that every parent gives to their child, there’s a path to be walked, there’s an anthem to be sang, there’s a rule to follow, there’s a vow to make, and there’s a frame to fit. So, boys like me suffer, boys who fail the how-to-be-a-man test, boys who walk crooked, boys who sing their own anthems, boys who break the vicious lifeless rules, boys who betray the taming thoughtless vows, boys who don’t fit in the frame, nor do they fit in the mold, boys who are the frame and who are the picture, boys who are being themselves boys who are who they want to be not who they’re ‘supposed’ to be… We get stoned, by people’s eyes, people’s tongues, people’s ears, people’s thoughts… and sometimes people’s actual stones, because we break a taboo, or because we don’t fear it anymore. I became who I am due to those who are stoning me, those who try to abort me, but I’ve learned to vitalizes myself every time I am murdered, and once you’re ready to tell your kid that the world is a goddamn hellhole, but being himself despite the stony consequences is better than wearing a mask and walking along the masses, you’ve helped make the world a tiny bit less of a hellhole.

For I am a man, and my gender is my mind, and my mind is my leader, and my leader is I, I shall be uniquely continuous, and an outstanding number of an original human being.