The Frustrated Feminist

I’m a frustrated feminist. I have always been a feminist of one kind or another, but the frustrated part is rather recent. It has a lot to do with where I live and what I do. Luckily, I haven’t reached the point of no return. I still shave my legs and armpits and wear makeup. And I’m straight. Yet I find myself hating men. Well, many of them anyway. It’s not that I hate the individuals who happen to be men. I just hate their misogyny and machismo, or whatever it is that drives them to subjugate women.   

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I live in an ultra-patriarchal society. This means men have the upper hand in almost all aspects of life here. They are the leaders, the law makers, the law keepers, and law breakers. This is true of most of the world, but it is a little more exaggerated in places like Egypt than in the United States or Western Europe. That is not to say that Egypt is on par with Saudi Arabia, Iran of Afghanistan in terms of women-hating.  Nevertheless, misogyny does have its place here. And it takes various forms. Female genital mutilation (extremely widespread); domestic violence (the norm); sexual harassment (no comment); honor killings (much rarer but do occur from time to time). Divorce, adultery and other personal status laws overtly favor men. And of course, there is the oh-so-prevalent “a women’s place is in the home” school of thought to which men and women subscribe. Again, all of these things exist in other countries, even in our corner of the world. It’s just that they occur with more much more frequency and much less stigma in this slice of the world.

Many justify these realities by claiming that they are designed to protect and empower women.  People who make these arguments are called apologists. They are essentially cosmetic surgeons for ugly reality. They are masters at making the greatest evils seem benign.

Misogyny is also apparent in the two mutually exclusive categories into which mainstream male thought lumps women. These categories are angel and whore. This is how it works. If a woman wears a headscarf, she is an angel. If she doesn’t, she is a whore. If a woman only has female friends, she is an angel. Virgin before marriage? Housewife and stay-at-home mom after marriage? Angel. Mixed-gender friendships? Working woman? Not a virgin? Dancer? Whore, whore, whore. Still not married by age 30? Old maid with severe issues. Got it? Good. 😉

So. Which category do I fall in? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not angel.

You are probably wondering what all of this has to do with belly dance. The answer is everything. We like to think that belly dance is a dance made by women for women. In fact, this is one of the things attracted me to this dance in the first place. Yet here in Egypt, men are the ones controlling and profit from this dance. Men are the agents and the talent and hotel managers. They are the musicians and the majority of the customers. They are the law makers determining which women can dance and under what circumstances. And they are the law enforcement officers enforcing those laws and arresting women who violate them.

If we compare this to how belly dance is run outside of Egypt (outside of the Middle East in general), we will find that things are pretty different. In the rest of the world, the belly dancers themselves are in charge of the business side of the dance. They are not merely performers.  They are event organizers, agents, and in a lot of cases, the majority of audience members. They are women helping women, and they make a profit from this art.  

Please don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against men cooperating with women to help them succeed. However, the keyword here is cooperate.  Unfortunately, cooperation sometimes gives way to exploitation, financial and sexual. For those of us who insist on dancing in Egypt, this comes with the territory. It doesn’t always happen…and there are respectable men in the business…but we are destined to encounter exploitation at some point in our careers. When (not if) that happens, it becomes a question of which type of exploitation we choose to tolerate. And that is an individual thing. Personally, I prefer being robbed to being groped, cajoled into bed, or even listening to some sexually deprived pervert talk about inappropriate subjects. I thus choose the people I deal with accordingly.

Let me reiterate that there are some decent men in the belly dance business looking to make an honest living. I have had the privilege to work with some of them. But they are far and few between. More often than not, I find myself wishing that more women would take the reins in the business side of belly dance. Something tells me that if they did, things would be better. Only a woman could understand the value of our shimmies. Only a woman could truly appreciate what it takes to perform half naked on a stage in a society that demonizes our profession. Only a woman could value the money, time, and energy we pump into learning and performing this dance.

To those social constructionists who would suggest there is no such thing as ‘women’s art’ because there is no such thing as gender, I would suggest they consider the following. It has been pretty well established that belly dance likely derived from fertility rituals…from the natural movements that women did when women got pregnant. The belly rolls, the shimmies, the flutters, the pelvic thrusts. The last time I checked, men can’t get pregnant. Would anyone like to prove me wrong?

What is even further proof of this being a woman’s dance is the fact that there is no distinct role for men in belly dance. Unlike ballet, salsa, and thousands of folkloric dances around the world, there are no special ‘man moves’ in belly dance. When men belly dance, they take on a female persona. They become women, if only for the duration of their performances. And there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. Just pointing out the obvious. 

Interestingly, a relatively famous male Egyptian dance teacher once told me that a man cannot truly belly dance. According to him, a man can only imitate this dance because he does not have a womb, which he believes is the source of a woman’s artistic inspiration. Whatever you think about the relationship between wombs and artistic inspiration, I think what he was getting at was that belly dance is essentially feminine. That it derived from fertility rituals. Thus, only women can truly get it right, because it requires the female essence. Whether you believe the womb is the seat of that essence is a separate issue.

In light of the evidence indicating that belly dance is a woman’s dance, it seems odd that men control every aspect of it. Then again, this is a man’s world. This is the only way to explain that the vast majority of Egyptian gynecologists are men. It is probably the same in most places. 

One of the results of men controlling the dance industry is women tearing each other down instead of helping each other. And I’m not talking about the petty cattiness that goes on in your belly dance community back home, either. I’m talking about calling the police on each other, destroying and stealing each other’s costumes, spreading career-ruining rumors, and doing things (and people) to prevent other dancers from ‘stealing’ their work. 

As much of a feminist as I like to be, it is almost impossible not to get caught up in this behavior at some point in your career. I had one of these moments recently, when I referred to another dancer as a sharmoota (prostitute). I recoiled after hearing that word slip off my tongue so effortlessly. Not because I know for a fact that she doesn’t work in prostitution, but because the word is so condemning. It is so judgmental and ugly, more so in Arabic than in English. In all actuality, I do not believe prostitutes deserve the condemnation embedded in such a word. They are unfortunate victims of the self-serving policies and norms that male heads of state and heads of households create, to the detriment of women. Thanks to the men who have ruined this country for decades, many of these women are illiterate and possess no employable skills. The only way they can feed themselves is by using their bodies, whether that be for prostitution, dance, or both. That makes them victims and survivors, not sharmootas. 

I will not carry on about the feminist revolution that needs to happen in this part of the world, but I will say that the realities I observe every day in my line of work are a big part of the reason I have become a bit of a ‘feminazi.’ Ultimately, I do not really foresee things changing anytime soon. Looks like I’ll be frustrated for a while, then.