Insomnia, Gender, Labor

Last night I couldn’t sleep.

I lay in my bed for nearly two hours going over and over and over the events of the week, my thoughts like storm waves clawing at a desolate trawler. My body was exhausted but my mind just wouldn’t shut down as it tried to process my experiences and observations over gender in Jordan. At the same time, I was feeling not so much homesick as activism-sick – longing to come back to the United States and return to the fights I has been engaged in over the Spring and Summer.

After living in Irbid for about a month, I’m getting the sense that there are some fundamental differences surrounding gender relations between  the US and Jordan. Here, the genders only interact under very specific circumstances – often (though not all the time) there seems to be a de facto wall barring any informal interactions between men and women. I still don’t necessarily understand everything, so it might be best to take my thoughts with an extra grain of salt until I’ve been able to process and observe more. However, there does seem to be some clarity to the fact that the consequence of this stark separation is that men are given extreme social agency while women have little to none. 

A few examples:

• I have not talked to a single Jordanian woman since arriving other than the staff in my program and roommates of my American friends. This is a literal fact. It is interesting how this contrasts with the extreme hospitality of the culture to reveal social agency. For example, whenever I cross the street it sometimes seems like half the city says “Welcome to Jordan!” Despite the enthusiastic gusto, the welcome really only does come from half the population.
• Reinforcing this fact, certain service sector jobs – shop owners, clerks, wait staff, cooks – seem to be predominantly male. I have only seen female clerks in large department stores – not in smaller local establishments. Whenever I go to the store to buy groceries or eat at a restaurant, most of interactions are with other men. However, I have seen female teachers, janitors, and government staff.
• When a Jordanian friend who had studied in Houston invited several of my friends to his house, his wife cooked the meal. My friends never saw her, never spoke with her, never congratulated her on the absolutely amazing job she did although their descriptions afterwards had my mouth watering. 

 Perhaps the craziest thing was a Jordanian friend of mine explaining his family dynamics. If he wants tea or coffee, he tells his mother or sister to make it for him. If they don’t, his Dad yells at them. 

However, I think it is important to avoid the perception that Jordanian women are fundamentally meek or subservient – those few Jordanian women I have interacted with tend to have incredibly strong and vibrant personalities punctuated by copious amounts off laughter. My teacher has a loud yet cute guffaw which she uses quite often in our class. She is established as the authority in our class and all the students clearly respect her. The program director curses like a sailor and is kinda like that crazy Aunt you can’t wait to see over the holidays. I’ve discussed the best Arabic curse words with her – her favorite is “your mother’s pussy.” 

The hardest thing for me has been figuring out where I stand in relation to the clear patriarchy in Jordan. As shocked as I am by some of the gender traditions, I can’t help but think of Arab feminists who have written on how white feminists trying to “fix” Arab culture are just as big a problem as patriarchy itself. It’s a pretty clear case of why intersectionality is integral to any social justice struggle. Right now, probably the worst thing I could do would be to fight. All I can do is observe and listen – I’ve only been here for a month. There’s a lot I haven’t seen. I want to talk to the Jordanian women I do know and get a deeper understanding of their thoughts on Jordanian culture and gender.  

I skyped with a good friend of mine last Thursday and I kept going through this circular thought process, thinking about how she’d love it here in Jordan, then remembering how that she would have a very different experience because she’s female, then realizing she probably would not love it here because she is female. That thought trail ran through my head several times before we actually talked. 

As an activist, I’m used to being engaged in a struggle against the injustices of the world. When I see suffering around me, it pisses me off and makes me want to fight. But here, unlike the United States, I don’t have any fight to channel that emotion into. Right now, I’m not part of a community actively dedicated to changing the world for the better and fighting the really bad shit that exists out there. Having this experience of being forcibly dissociated from activism… is weird. 

That was the other thing that kept me up last night – thinking about the fights I’m involved in – on campus and with the union. I kept visualizing what they were doing, what they would be doing, and how I would fit in with that when I returned. There’s that really trite phrase “distance makes the heart grow fond.” To be completely honest, that’s how I feel with activism right now. We’ll see where I am after a semester, but experiencing life without activism… is dull. Like a broad and beautiful canvass with the vibrancy of color robbed from it. For me, one of the many wonderful opportunities that come from this study abroad program is self-reflection. And as a result of such reflection, I can’t really see myself doing anything but activism after I graduate. After spending two years volunteering and working in social justice activism, it's not just that the work fills an emotional need. In all truth, I love the work.

That being said, I think this semester is a wonderful opportunity for me as a social justice activist. This semester is a lesson in listening which I’m thankful for. As a white man, I’ve grown up in a society and globalized world which prioritizes my words first – regardless of their content – because I’m a white man. I’ve received a lot more training in speaking than I have in listening. Here, I don’t know shit because it’s not my culture and that’s a great thing because, if I really want to understand, I have to listen! (Though, I get the sense white/American privilege does totally exist here – that might be the subject of a later post).