Girls in Industrial Area

While one's sex refers to the biological features that determines if they were male or female, gender, on the other hand, refers to "the meanings a the society gives to masculinity and femininity" (Sutherland & Feltey, p.132).

Worldwide, strength, boldness, aggressiveness, ...etc. are seen as masculine traits, while femininity is usually thought of as being emotional, submissive, sensitive, nurturing, ...etc. Despite the major achievements done by women in the Arab world, the society still prefers if they perform within their "feminine" context, as they are mainly seen as nurturing mothers and loving wives only. These gender stereotypes have been negotiated over the years, however, they have not completely vanished.
Nowadays, women can study, work, travel, and do a lot of other "active" things, however, there are still a lot of constrictions that they face everyday.

A few days ago, my friend and I had to go to the industrial area to pick up a phone booth from Qtel/Ooreedoo, a prop that we need for a film that we are making. Industrial area is an area with all the garages, factories, car service companies,... etc., and it's usually a male-dominated area as it is mostly filled with workers and laborers. When we first mentioned that we are going to our friends, they were very surprised that we are two girls going there alone without the company of a guy. Some of our male friends offered to accompany us, but we refused.

It was very interesting to see how our gender was an issue even though our sex was not. We went to the industrial area regardless of all the comments that we got such as: "Better safe than sorry".

We arrived to Qtel on time, and we were ready to pick up the phone booth and load it on to the truck. However, the Qtel representative and the truck driver did not let us, and called some of the workers to do it. We thought that they were being nice so we agreed and left.

However, when we left the industrial area and reached our location, it was only us and the truck driver. He tried to load the phone booth off the truck alone but it was too heavy and it almost broke. Again, we offered to help but he refused, and called a stranger off the street to help him instead.

This incident like many others was just a reminder for my friend and I of how our gender determines the way the society and other people see us.