Yes, I said it…what? Was it provoked? Dang Skippy it was! It was provoked by several conversations on another blog. The blog is written by an American woman who has recently moved to Saudi Arabia and it discusses her perceptions of Saudis. She admits and it was pointed out in the comments that what she says are often sweeping generalizations. That’s totally understandable. Such is life. What is interesting is that when asked about a generalization of the American woman and I pointed out the obvious – American women got defensive. So here is what I would say as an American living abroad, what a typical American woman is. Now of course there are exceptions and this does not apply to all - so nobody go getting their panties all in a bunch. However, if the shoe fits wear it!
The Bitch
a. The power driven/hungry bitch - This is basically the picture of the successful woman. She followed her dreams and is still miserable. At least it appears that way. She is usually unmarried and childless. Examples are Condeleza Rice and Oprah. Married with children examples are Hilary Clinton and Sara Palin. These of course hold celebrity status but we all know of someone with mediocre status that is like this.
b. The misery loves company bitch. This type of bitch complains about everything. The more they complain the more you realize how screwed up the person is. Some of their valid complaints get over exaggerated because they are so bitter. They usually had messed up childhoods and then continued the cycle into their adult lives. They are the most unhappy uncontent miserable bitches you have the misfortune of coming in contact with.
The Ho
This is what the world sees. The entire world sees the American Woman as a Ho. A low standard, vile, promiscuous, scantly clad Ho. This really needs no explanation, but since the truth hurts this is where the American woman will get most defensive when accused of such wanton behavior.
a. The Stank Ho. She just a Ho, she knows she’s a Ho (and proud of it).
b. The ‘I a’int no Ho!’ Ho – This is the most common Ho. This is the epitome of the American woman. She’s ultra liberal, she loves to show off her body, and she doesn’t even realize she’s a Ho. See she’s educated, with a good job. She may not even sleep around that much. May even be married, but of course she got married after having sex with her then boyfriend. The idea of no sex until marriage is a foreign concept. She’s mature. Knows her body and carries her own protection (against pregnancy, disease, dog bites, whatever!).
~~~~~~~
These are the only two categories I could think of. Seriously and I pondered hard about this. Of course their the loving mother and wife, but she often would fall under the adulterous Ho category…at least that is what one sees on T.V. This is the Irony of the American woman who wants to liberate the Saudi woman. The American woman usually has two major complaints about Saudi women:
1. The covering of the hair and body.
2. Gender Segregation.
The Irony is that when the American woman screams and hollers about the so-called oppression of Saudi women they do not realize that the American lifestyle that the American woman flaunts in front of the world is not desired by the majority of Saudi women and this is why the so-called, open minded, liberal, and progressive Saudi women are looked down on in this society. MBC4 is a Saudi owned English Television Station. Here is it’s lineup:
Current Shows
- Charmed
- Rachael Ray
- Dr. Phil
- The Oprah Winfrey Show
- The Doctors (2008 TV series)
- The David Letterman Show
- Friends
- Days of our Lives
- The Insider
- Inside Edition
- Entertainment Tonight
- The Moment of Truth
- Citruss TV
- Grey’s Anatomy
- Friends
- Desperate Housewives
- So You Think You Can Dance (U.S. TV series)
- The Early Show
- This Week
- Face the Nation
- Good Morning America
- Up To The Minute
- World News with Charles Gibson
- 48 Hours
- CBS Evening News
- Primetime
- Nightline
- 20/20
Take away the the morning news and talk shows and what do you have? What do you think the impression is?
Days of our Lives. The wealthy Saudis can relate to the glamour and riches. The poor ones can dream of it. But they all see scantly dressed men and women fornicating and committing adultery. Even the old women have secret past!
Grey’s Anatomy. This is good! This is what the Saudi youth aspire to. Every families dream is to have an educated doctor in the family. The reality is that the hospitals in Saudi are one of the only areas where men and women work together and they are meat markets just like their American idols. Again we have sex sex sex and more sex.
Desperate Housewives. What Saudi woman can’t relate to that, as most of them are housewives. The kick is this show represents your typical American House wife as an adulterous,conniving bitch!
So You Think You Can Dance. They’re just having a lil innocent fun…right? However again the image is that when men and women intermingle they are half naked and grinding.
Friends. This is what the open minded Saudi envisions when the American complains about the gender separation. The American never fails to say how having friends of the opposite gender doesn’t mean that you have to have sex with them. You can just learn how to get along with the opposite sex. However, this show will let you know that even platonic relationships can be risky. I believe all the friends have slept together.
The Moment of Truth. I seriously doubt that you will ever see a Muslim version of this show. Most Saudis who do dirt do it secretly and would be ashamed to be exposed. Only the lowest of the low would expose the type of things seen on this show, for the chance of winning money. I remember a few years ago a Arab man was arrested at the airport with his mother, because instead of saying that the device detected was a penis pump, because he was ashamed in front of his mother, he said it was a bomb. Either that or he whispered, “pump” really low so his mother wouldn’t hear but since there is no ‘p’ in Arabic, he said “bumb” which to the officer sounded like “BOMB!!!”.
Alright America, do not complain when people think that your society is a cesspool of filth. This is the image you portray to the world and it is usually based on the societal norm. I am an American woman and on the blog I am referring to it was pointed out that I am an African American woman from Chicago and implied that my experience as a black woman is different from the typical American woman. I’ve heard this before, I’m married to a white man and he likes to play dumb or go into denial about how filthy Americans in general can be. He knows it’s true but it is something he projects on other people. A defensive mechanism. He doesn’t allow our children to watch television, so he knows it’s corrupt. I’ll give the same response I give my husband when he comes with that stuff about, “That must be just blacks” and even an African American woman commented on the blog that I must have had a “narrow” experience because she is educated and works in a male dominate environment and has no problems.
True my experience as an African American is different than a white American in some cases. However, I have the broader view. Unlike most white Americans I have been exposed to ‘the other side’. Not to mention I live abroad so that broadens my perspective even more, because I have observed the whole spectrum. I was not always in the hood. As I told my husband it was not until I went away to a majority white University (5% minority, divide that with Black, Hispanic, Asians, and international students and you have less than 2% black) that I realized how buck wild Americans are. He didn’t think it was a fair representation. He thinks that Universities are dumping grounds for moral decay. I find that interesting. On one hand my (implied) experience as a ghetto hood rat is not representative of typical Americans and even some African Americans are quick to distance themselves from that perception and will tell you how educated and buppy they are but then when you say, “hey wait a minute. I lived and learned in a typical American University and I saw more sex and drugs there than anywhere”, then they start two stepping and shucking!
So we have my Coed experience. Let’s talk about my work experience. I also worked in a male dominated environment. I would guess that it was 90% men. I also would guess that 8% of the 10% women were sleeping with colleagues and co-workers. I remember once, I had to attend a week long conference out of town. I took my father and my nephew with me, because even before coming to Saudi I knew that Muslim women should not to travel without a male relative. When I got to the hotel I was so happy that I brought my father and nephew. This was probably worse then the infamous ‘Office Christmas Party’ behavior I’ve heard about. You know where everyone gets druck and sleeps around. That is how it was there. Some married people left their spouses and were creeping. I had men approach me and tell me, “you better be glad you got your daddy with you cause I wanted to hit that.” People did not understand how a grown woman would bring her father with her. People actually thought that I would be in that hotel creeping with them. Having my male relatives with me was the only thing that kept men from knocking down my door. That does not mean that without them I would have got buck wild, because I fear Allah. However, there is much wisdom in this prohibition of women traveling without a male relative.
So how does it feel American Woman to be generalized? Which category do you fit in? Are you a bitch or a Ho? I’m neither and I am sure that many of you aren’t either.
This was written to make a point, so please refrain from comments suggesting that not all American women are bitches and hos.
Boo Hoo. So non muslims f*ck and love it. Who cares?
I’m not enticed to become an Arab after watching the mind numbingly boring sh*t on arabic channels either. Also with western movies censored to the humour and intelligence levels of 10 year olds.
Least the world isn’t a paradise for you cos it’d be hell for me.
I have been deconstructing some movies from my childhood to recapture some of the messages I received–yeah I have unusual hobbies. Anyhoo, I was really surprised by the high incidents of adultery in film and television. In my youth and even now, I perceived those messages as exaggeration, though I did not perceive the incidents of pre-marital sex as exaggeration. Western culture openly accepts the latter, but subversively accepts the former. So I was curious as to what was closer to reality–
From the New York Times 10/28/2007 Love, Sex and the Changing Landscape of Infidelity:
“Infidelity appears to be on the rise, particularly among older men and young couples. Notably, women appear to be closing the adultery gap: younger women appear to be cheating on their spouses nearly as often as men…University of Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991. For women over 60, the increase is more striking: to 15 percent, up from 5 percent in 1991.The researchers also see big changes in relatively new marriages. About 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 say they have ever been unfaithful, up from about 15 and 12 percent respectively.”
I’m gonna say this is partially because many people had different interpretations of those same messages we received together.
Also, I have known a few Muslim exchange students and the thing they all agreed on was that the culture (and more specifically teen culture) was far worse than they expected from TV and film representations. One girl told me that she thought TV representations were exaggerated, but was really shocked to find reality worse. She pointed to pregnant girls at school, students openly admitting to being intoxicated at school, rude behavior to parents and teachers and xenophobic peers. Of course she didn’t use the term xenophobic-she said they were stupid, nationalistic and openly prejudiced.
Another interesting thing about the exchange students is that two of them that do not hijab due to cultural rejection of it back home, did hijab here! They wanted to differentiate themselves. Berry interesting stuff, doc…
L&P
What I find interesting is that White America sees THEIR America in an unrealistic “rosey clored” way. For them to say that Black experiences don’t express the true fabric of this country is absurd. I think this is due in part to racist ideas and stereotypes. If a Black man has a bunch of women and is sexually involved with them, he is called a pimp and looked down upon. Just as the women would be and are referred to as hoes. But let a White man like Hugh Heffner do it and “He’s the man.” It’s all fun, amusing and appropiate to discuss his life…he’s a Playboy…and his “Bunnies,” they’re not whores their sexy independent women. Right…Wake up America!!!Black and White and everything in between..this IS the cesspool of filth thats shown on TV.
Subhan-Allah, al-humdulillah for Islam you tell ‘em girly. I love it when I hear white liberal women (and now their color spectrum cronies) sound so depressed when they talk about the plight of us poor women, and men! Even my own mother and mother-in-law couldn’t for the life of themselves understand why I had to wear a black abaya and niqab and gloves WTH! They just knew it was some cult or that crazy husband of mine corrupting her poor baby.
That abaya was all me, and when I decided not to wear it anymore, that was all me too. The ladies thought I was enlightened in some way and almost applauded. I informed the both of them that it was not proper to draw attention to myself, and in a culture where the abaya and niqab draw more attention than it was intended it is not proper for me to wear it here.
“Mama, its ok for me to have a boyfriend, but you don’t want me to get married?”
She wanted me to live ‘a little’. Well I had and that crap is for the birds. I had a girlfriend who sent her girls to stay with their grandmother for the weekend. Grandma gave the oldest a pair of pum pum shorts and told her since her mother wasn’t there she could wear the shorts and go out and play……
When I was 13 I wore pum pum shorts and walked my friend to the bus stop. On my way home a man in a truck drove up next to me and asked me “directions” back to the highway. When I turned to look at him, his p*nis exposed and erect and he told me I could go with him. I ran my ho a** right in the mall and waited like an hour before I went home.
My mother was not allowed to wear those type of clothes, but my grandmother was said to be too proper and ‘old fashioned.’ Unbelievable how parents push their children out in the world to be prostitutes.
What irks me is how women go the Middle East – usually because their boyfriends or husbands get a high paying job and complain, complain, complain. Stay your stank butt at home. All of yous…All across the world people can pick out the Americans. They are unsophisticated and uncultured. People have a right to live their lives as they see fit.
In reality, these people do not want to see a society that places morals over the desires and depravities of human beings. They say ‘live and let live’ but the truth of their words are ‘live as I live.’
We live in the hour of Prophet Lut. And with Allah there is sanctity and help.
Yeah the women come to the middle east with their husbands to take some money back to a better place where people actually work for it, not get it handed to them in hydrocarbon handouts, relying on slave labour to actually do the work such as.. Walk their dog or… Raise their children. They have every right to complain about the place, it sucks. unless Saudi Arabia implements some kind of ’sharia endorsed’ law prohibiting freedom of speech. No doubt they would if they could convincingly fake a way to make people belive ‘allah’ agrees with it. Cant be too hard, after all, muslims can convince people to murder apostasised family members in his name.
So are you saying Americans are the new Mexicans of the Middle East? Mexicans feel the same as you regarding Mexican culture as being superior to American culture Unbeliever.
“They have every right to complain about the place, it sucks.”
If Saudi is so terrible, and people from the West can’t get enough of trying to get over there, then does that mean that the US is in decline and is not able to adequately provide for her citizens, that they must go elsewhere to earn a living?
Surely this is not what the founding fathers intended when they were in the process of nation building. If you are American, can you not recognize that the decline of America’s stature in the world is directly related to both the decline in her morals and ethics. It is a decline in ethics which has lead to our current economical decline.
What would you say regarding a country such as Thailand in which the prostitution and trafficking of young children is so rampant that it is becoming the norm. How about the continuing onslaught of abject poverty and lack of basic resources in many countries within Africa?
I am happy to see you are so energetic towards the Saudi’s; however, in the grand scheme of the world, that country and its people do much with their wealth to support the world and feed the poor. Perhaps your energies would be more helpful for yourself and others to use them wisely. There are a number of organizations that are desperate for volunteer help.
My concern for my beautiful country, is that people are so busy wanting for themselves, and criticizing other sovereign nations that the very people that are truly in need are being overlooked.
“Cant be too hard, after all, (M) muslims can convince people to murder apostasised (apostate) family members in (H)his name.”
People of all religions murder. This is not a cornered phenomena for Muslims. In Boliva a man is allowed to murder his wife without criminal charges being brought against him. (There maybe a law on the books, but it not culturally enforced) Considering it is a majority Christian nation, it is fair to say that a Christian man would kill his wife…correct?
I have no problem with the classification of the Muslim as the “Other.” However, if classifications are going around, let them go around completely.
ex. “today, a Christian man r*ped, s*domized and murdered an Atheist woman, police have released a description.”
D.
Unbeliever – go to hell.
ummadam, I think you simplify things a little too much. There an “in between” between to be a “whore” and to have to go everywhere with a male relative: it’s called respect and self-esteem. You didn’t need your father to say “No” (you said so yourself) or the LAw to forbide you to even go there.Unfortunately, I suppose those men and women did’nt have much respect and self-esteem. As a Christian, I personnaly don’t have a television because television = world; I don’t go to parties etc….And I think a LOT (maybe more than what we think) of Americans are choosing this path too. But it is sad the TV (and “untertainment” in general is choosing to show the trash…Money, money!= the world, the world, the world)
Great blog, Have a good day.
Salaams Umm Adam:
LOL; you had me going until the end. Excellent post and point well taken.
I was thinking the other day about what it is to be an “American”. In some cases, some of our 50 states are like separate countries unto themselves
“The Irony is that … the American lifestyle that the American woman flaunts in front of the world is not desired by the majority of Saudi women…”
Obviously it is not wanted by Saudi women.
They are raised to believe they are subservient to men – they need men for everything in life (from traveling to being driven).
And this mentality has been pushed into them for decades and decades (Wahabis).
So when this new idea of freedom comes around, they obviously feel unnatural and uncomfortable; not because they hate the idea of freedom but because they have been raised to hate freedom and change.
I think I’ll just sidestep this post….
Ab,
Can you give me any examples of men and women freemixing dring the times of the Prophet, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam? I ask this because you speak of “Wahabis having brainwashed the women into thinking they are subservient to men” so much so that they hate “freedom and change”. I wonder what change you propose for us Muslim women that would be in line with Islam as a way of life, Islam as it was intended, Islam as Allah has revealed it through His final Messenger.
And I wonder what “freedom” you propose and what your definition is for it, is it “freedom=american way of life”, and anything that goes against it is automatically wrong, does the whole world need to adjust to the aemerican lifestyle?
I am not from Saudi Arabia but from a country in Europe, where the values different from the values in the West still prevail. This in a small country surrounded by “advanced” countries, the western standard of life and morally corrupt societies!!! Why haven’t the people of my country have been brainwashed to think and act as those which surround them? And there are man countries like that in the world, where people DO have a choice, yet refuse to let go of their values and way of life in exchange for someone elses.
As for America and some of the things Umm Adam talks about, I have lived here eight years now and I must say I held many jobs, yet not a single one where there weren’t “couples” at work, most of the time married men and women with children, of any change, who OPENLY committed adultery and weren’t even ashamed for it, rather, they shoved in down the throat of those who felt uncomfortable with seeing such behaviour. Point is, I see it EVERYWHERE around me here in the US. I am not saying that adultery in my country doesn’t happen, of course it does, however the major difference is that those who committ it actually feel ASHAMED and do everything to hide it from the people, whereas in the US it is the most natural thing it seems. I am also not saying that there aren’t exceptions in the US, of course there are, but Umm Adam spoke of generalisations, and this is what I generally see, what I generally hear etc. And what is sad is that, just the other day, a woman at my job who is committing adultery with a coworker openly, (holding hands at work, kissing and touching at work, doing more in their car on the parking lot), what is sad is that she had the nerve to come up to me and ask me “Why do your people think of us American women as whores and morally corrupt?” My answer to her question was “Because of what you do”.
Brooke, good observations. There are no longer stigmas in these modern times in America. Everything is fair game in the name of freedom.
Waridi, it is arrogance that gives certain whites superiority complexes. Funny thing is they believe they are great humanitarians, yet ignore the black communities. They want to liberate the Saudi/Muslim woman from control of men but don’t even address (unless they are speaking down)problems with the way blacks are treated in their own countrie. Why aren’t they volunteering or taking jobs in black schools and community centers? How many black babies have they taken in as foster children or adopted (and I aint talking about African babies.. I’m talking bout the lil negroes across the tracks!)?
Sunspots, many parents don’t expect or encourage marriage first. The American culture only wants to educate the child to protect themselves from disease and pregnancy. If anyone even remotely suggest abstinence then they are considered backwards.
Safiyyah, do you know of any of the States where the type of woman I described would be unusual?
Emma, trust me there is plenty that I could say about the middle ground. I realize it is not perfect here in Saudi and that many of the cultural norms are not from Islam but are their traditions. As an American woman it is not my place to tell them how to live. I’ve never told Americans how to live, I simply left and moved to a country that I felt I had a better chance to raise pious children in. Anyway, my point was not to discuss who is right or wrong, but to let the other have a taste of it’s own medicine. Thanks for stopping by and I hope I did not offend you.
Cousin Holly, you know I thought of you after I wrote this. I was really concerned with how you would feel about me after what I said. I hated writing that post…I really did. I just wanted others to see what it feels like. For sure you do not fall in any of those categories, but to be honest, if a Saudi woman moved to America she would likely never meet a mother of 8, homeschooling children,church going, apple picking/canning, children not allowed to date, woman. This is the exception not the norm and unfortunately it is one that would not be viewed as ‘Typical’. Again my post was not to offend anyone, it had a specific reference and context.
Ab, you say that like it’s a bad thing to not want to be exposed to filth.
Dalioness, unfortunately people would rather follow the kufar into a lizard hole than to follow what Allah and His Messenger say.
Would anyone care to share a more positive description of The Typical American woman? Remember, we are generalizing.
It doesn’t feel good does it? Trust me I know…I’m a black woman. If the typical American woman is a Bitch or a Ho than the typical African American is a loud mouth bitch/ho with an attitude. And the Typical Black man is a drug dealing, gang-banging, womanizing, not taking care of his children and eventually murdered or in jail. The only decent black men are light skin with one immigrant black parent ( therefore not raised around the typical negro)and qualified to be president, secretary of staff (Colin Powell) and Attorney General (Eric Holder).
Salaams Umm Adam-
Great post! I have lived in Oman for 17 years and could never live in the US again. I went back to do my masters 9 years ago and it was difficult for me to live there, eventhough my family was there.
Many people in the west think just because we are covering we are oppressed… that is not the case… WE ARE FREE…
Your sister in Islam
Hey I like Rachel Ray. Even though I’m a SAHM I LOVE to make a 30min meal and have more time for other stuff.
Cooking used to be fun and relaxing, but that was before I had my wonderful masha’allah children running all over the place asking questions, getting into things and fighting over stray balloons.
Now I just try and get it over with quickly and still have it taste good.
wa alaykum salaam hoffie! i can only imagine.
foreverloyal – you need a mommies helper. i’m a nervous wreck in the kitchen and end up screaming at everybody. i am to accident prone to have a bunch of commotion going on in the kitchen.
Oh, I knew that. You were talking against being stereotyped. It gets old for me, it must get old for you. I’m not offended. I understood.
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I am troubled by the posting because it does generalize. And much of it refers to television and film. Ex: If only my home was picture perfect, dust free and spotless like the homes reflected in tv and film. [All those heroes trying to save the day, climbing through the vents had awfully clean vents to squirrel through.] If only I could resolve years old family conflicts in 22 minutes and have a laugh track in the background.
Sisters, yours is an unfortunate limited view of American women and grossly inaccurate. This is your blog and you are certainly entitled to express your exclusive views here. However, this entry is offensive and gross incorrect. Just as it would be inaccurate to label African American women as either welfare queens or party-girl lesbians or African American men for that matter as either gang banging thugs or spineless lazy romeos, it is a disservice for you to do that to American women in general.
America is pretty much a society that claims to have a majority Christian mindset, but very few of those Christians follow their book. Just as many of us know that Saudis are racist, sexist and not the most hard working people, it would be unfair for me or anyone to write a piece limiting the entire nation as either one or the other. I often have to tell other brothers and sisters that the immoral behavior of non-Muslims is just that. Non-Muslims don’t have to follow the sunnah and don’t. At one time, many of us were non-Muslim and doing just the things that we find offensive now that we are Muslim. Worse, some Muslims, American and muhajir, are guilty of such behavior — here in the US and all over the world including Saudi. But that information is not as well publicized to the point of being on nightly television.
As much as I love visiting and reading your blog, I am beginning to wonder if you are maybe becoming a little holier than thou. It’s easy when you have hot running water, indoor plumbing and lots of soap and water to wonder why other people (who don’t) are so dirty and then to think you are better than they are because you don’t smell.
For local Saudi readers and non-Americans reading this blog, the word “ho” is considered “ghetto”, “street” and for the most part very bad slang for the word “whore”. Although you admit to making “sweeping generalizations”, it is in fact a serious sin to pin such a label on anyone when it is not true. Making sweeping generalizations is very bad business, sis.