Big City, Narrow Minds [Archives:2005/907/Community]
By: Issmat Al-Akhali
Sex Sex Sex Sex Sex!
There, I said it. If Sigmund Freud was alive, he would say that the culture and social norms in Yemen subconsciously revolve around Sex. The taboo that engulfs the subject helps fuel its prominence in the minds of every person living in Yemen. Mutual tension between the sexes brews deep as the apparent lack of knowledge drives the country to lock itself in a strict policy of segregation. The social divide grows wider while society surrenders its progress for fear of the unknown.
In Yemen, girls/women talk about boys/men, and vice-versa. The problem is that boys and girls do not talk to each other, so no one is cross-referencing their information. We find ourselves trapped in perpetual stereotyping, and framing each other in pre-defined square boxes that fit the image we create about the opposite sex.
The very first form of instilling social norms, positive or negative, in Yemen's youth is the school system. Why do we feel the need to enforce segregation in our schools? Are we afraid that we did not raise our children with the value systems and moral concepts they require to make basic decisions regarding what is right and what is wrong? Yet, as a predominantly Muslim country, we are the first to use (or abuse?) our religious affiliation to put ourselves on a pedestal of moral superiority in contrast to other nations.
Perhaps the reason society enforces segregation is to combat what is deemed as the natural tendency of opposite sexes to want to connect, interact, and explore each other intellectually, spiritually, and physically. Then again, if the tendency is “natural”, then who is responsible for making us feel “unnatural” about it? Is it Government?
Religion? Guardians? Parents today are less traditionally inclined than their parents, and their parents less than their grand parents.
In a free-market economy, buyers and sellers are allowed to interact freely and determine their own best interests. Equilibrium between supply and demand is achieved in homogeny. If segregation was a choice, not a rule, there are those who believe that society will eventually realize a similar effect.
If the cloak of mystery cast by segregation is revealed, then perhaps both sexes in Yemen will eventually come to stand in front of each other, naked of presumptions, and realize that both are equally creatures of flesh, thoughts, feelings, and mutual misunderstandings.
Only then can we, as a society, begin to truly grasp the reins of progress and ride our civic chariots into the future.
* Issmat Al-Akhali is an editor for ShababYemeni. ShababYemeni is an initiative by a group of inspired Yemeni Youth made specifically for the Yemeni Youth. SY could be contacted at: [email protected]
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