Kindness/Cruelty, Morals/Ethics: What We Tell Ourselves and What We Tell Others: Part 1

When I was a child I was told a great many lies, some by friends and family, others by society at large. Part of the reason I have a grudge against Disney is because they sold me a lie that it took until my 20’s to recover from: “Some day my prince will come.”. Society even supports this lie by saying “there is someone for everyone”, seeding the sense of inadequacy that develops from failed relationships and a lack of relationships. The sense of inadequacy that companies and marketing campaigns use to sell you things, and society blames you for, while ignoring that their messages mainly target white women and tell men they also don’t have to do anything as a partner will magically appear.

In anime the latter LITERALLY HAPPENS…but I can’t seem to find a gif for it so -

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Now before I go all Fight Club on you (ha ha, get it? Cus satire?), the point I am making here is that we are raised with conflicting messages, messages meant to soften the full body blow that is the world we live in, maintain us as productive members of the social unit, and leave us imagining that even in a zombie apocalypse, we’ll all hold hands, pitch in, and make things work. 

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Or not.

The other reason the above gif works is because just before the events it depicts, Robert Carlyle and his wife were sat at a table having dinner with an elderly couple who had let them and a few others hole up in their house to protect themselves from the zom-sorry, those infected with the rage virus. They were trying to ‘make it work’. On that note, another lie I was told was that kindness is always repaid. What was built in my little mind in contrast to the stark and later bleak reality was the idea that the universe always rights itself, bad people are punished, and good people are rewarded. The universe DOES right itself, our definition of ‘righting itself’ however is wholly human (individual even) centred, and what we forget is balance in the universe does not necessarily mean balance for US. Anyway, the notion that all will work out the way we want in the end is part of the trick that keeps society functioning and the point from which I would like us to break things down: kindness/cruelty, morals/ethics, the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others. To make things a bit easier to follow we can imagine that on the one hand we have kindness/cruelty and morals/ ethics, and on the other the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others. They all overlap, because the lies we tell ourselves and others are often about kindness/cruelty and morals and ethics. In short, we tell ourselves lies about how kindness, cruelty, morals and ethics function in the world to keep ourselves functioning in the world, and we tell others lies about those same things in order to keep both ourselves and others functioning in the world. Thus the web is spun.

So going back to the example I opened with, children get sold the idea that they will eventually find love, marry and have kids. In addition to sparing children the harsh reality that it may not turn out that way or could possibly turn out that way but unhappily so, adults feel like ‘good’ people for shielding children and themselves from the idea that maybe, but not absolutely, unhealthy relationships are all that lies in store. Because society has trained us that being alone is bad or means there is something wrong with you, so heaven forbid you wind up ALONE (cue scary reveal music). Also, it is assumed that if you are alone you are not helping to perpetuate society by HAVING CHILDREN, which is the other, more basic reason children are socialized to marry and have children.

So back to kindness/cruelty. We are all raised to believe that people are inherently “good” or kind and that when you are in trouble, someone will always help you. We believe in the Good Samaritan, the kindly bystander. What we ignore is that they are the exception and not the rule as our notions of good, bad and normal are in reality constantly shifting. Part of this is because ‘good’,’ bad’ and ‘normal’ are terrible words, empty in meaning and excellent place holders, and part of this is that as place holders they are filled with a general, but not mutually agreed upon understanding. They can mean everything and nothing at the same time. 

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A good (ha ha) example of the issue with kindness/goodness is a form of the bystander effect. While training volunteers in Egypt to work against sexual harassment, a trainer showed a video of a crowd on a train platform in the UK. The idea was to show the volunteers how mass mentality works, and argue why it could work to stop harassers in public spaces. A group of actors had been hired to enact a pick pocketing to see how non-actors would react. The actor very obviously took the other actor’s wallet out of their pocket with the latter pretending not to notice, and in the video, it is clear that non-actors noticed, but no one said or did anything. Now we all like to imagine that if in that situation, we’d stop the pick pocket, but we know in our heart of hearts that is just not very likely. To be clear, I am saying UNLIKELY, not IMPOSSIBLE. We are more likely, as a second reenactment of the pick-pocketing showed, to do something when someone else does something first. This brings up the notion of discomfort; people are not comfortable in the moment of the situation when faced with ‘do something’ and stand out or ‘stay quiet’ and follow the crowd. At the same time, we do not like the idea that we are more likely to follow, or to seek permission to do something in public, or that maybe we just don’t care, so we tell ourselves that we are not that person, and that if a stranger needed help, we wouldn’t hesitate to act. Here’s some more proof for you.

But then this was the issue when it came to sexual harassment in public spaces: bystanders rarely if ever ACT, and they were even siding with the harasser. What the volunteers were being trained to do was change the flow of the tide so that more bystanders than not would stop the harasser versus support them or blame the harassed. 

These kinds of issues also unfold in more personal settings. Take the classic example so common that if it hasn’t actually happened to you, you have most likely seen it in your favourite tv series: a woman goes to confide in her friend that she is being sexually harassed[1]. She is visibly scared, but her friend, instead of comforting her, asks her if she was sure what she experienced was harassment. The friend then proceeds to downplay the story, suggesting to the woman that maybe there was some sort of misunderstanding or surely the person didn’t mean for their actions to be perceived as harassment. Congratulations: here is a lie we are telling both ourselves and others. We do not want to shatter our belief that the world is a ‘good’ place filled with ‘good’ people, we do not want to see our friends and family hurt, and we want to impart that utopia to our friend through convincing her that maybe it didn’t happen the way she thinks it did, and urging her to go back to the mental state she occupied before the incident(s) occurred. In peddling this fiction, we are reinforcing a social norm that promotes toxic masculinities and femininities, and we are shielding ourselves from the idea that terrible things may happen to us and our loved ones, or that we may be the perpetrators of acts that cause others pain. The reality however is that we are all guilty of causing pain, and it is only when we face this reality head on that we can begin to take apart why we do these things, how we can change, and maybe how we can heal the wounds inflicted on others and those visited upon us. Then maybe reality will seem less terrible, and we won’t want to hide ourselves and our loved ones. 

I could delve into these ideas further but there are too many things to unpack that would take us down many many side roads and into early retirement. Mainly what I was aiming at here is to get us thinking about how we could rethink what we do and how it impacts our own lives and the lives of those around us. Don’t be the silent bystander. Read your children the original Grimm’s Fairytales or stories where the princess saves herself (I am ashamed to admit I don’t know any off the top of my head, but I suggested Grimm because at least the prince loses the odd limb or gets derailed from his quest making it a bit more realistic). Take your friend at their word when they tell you they’ve been harassed/assaulted (I’m frowning at you Jussie Smollet.) Next time, I will try to tackle morals/ethics. Wish me luck and bring paracetemol. I’m off to watch the Promised Neverland.  

Anime - Tech - Games - VR

[1]In this hypothetical the women is indeed being sexually harassed and there is no ambiguity. If you are wondering what defines sexual harassment you can read Gunilla Carstensens 2016 piece ‘Sexual Harassment: The Forgotten Grey Zone’ and/or watch the BBC clip ‘Is This Sexual Harassment’ (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06x0jv5)

A Woman's Place

Culture plays a very big role in how we understand public and private space. Where I come from, for the most part, private space is a myth. In Egypt, we find pride in our social nature. We love the fact that our homes are always open, our tables are always welcoming and our spirits are mostly high. In our culture, we celebrate coming together for feasts, for birthdays, for funerals. And for revolutions. However, this hospitality rarely extends to the public space – to the street. Culturally, and sadly, a man’s place is in the public space while the private space is the woman’s, to exist in but not to rule or control.

Then there is the political side. Recently, we’ve lost the ability to be so social. Even if we don’t count all the friends lost and relationships that broke over the political rupture we’ve gone through, it has become risky to exist in big groups in public. Demonstrating is illegal and in a legal system where everything is poorly defined anything can be deemed a demonstration. And ever since the crash of the Egyptian pound, private gatherings are simply unaffordable. This break in how we’re meant to live our life, how we understand our existence in the space we inhabit has broken us – well, dented us. My generation has already been battered and had their blood and bones splattered on the very streets we now have little access to. Demonstrating much other than our miserable individuality is highly frowned upon. We are a living manifestation of divide and ruthlessly conquer.

Public space is also, of course, gendered. For men, the public space is the street; for women – the public place is her life. Our (in)ability to walk down or stand on the street is a consequence of women being perceived as the object of observation. We are constantly under scrutiny for the specific purpose of judgment – by everyone - including, most heartbreakingly, other women. When does she leave her house? What time does she go home? How often is she out? Who does she go out with? Where are they likely to go? What is she wearing? Answers to these questions are to be known, by neighbours and the infamous bawab (doorman). Then, if you pass that impenetrable filter of respectability and honour, and are about to get married, how you inhabit your personal space is now next on the list. Can she cook? Can she clean? Does she take care of herself, or does she let herself go once nobody is looking? Is she a pretty-matching-PJs kind of girl or wretched hair-don’t care kind of girl? We live for the gaze, and practice existing for it, even in private.

A while ago, a girl was standing on the street, in suburban Cairo (not that this should be relevant), when a man approached her and invited her for a cup of coffee. He claimed to only want to relieve her of the harassment she’d get by simply standing there, and that he was “not bothering her”. Her response was that he was in fact bothering her. She then posted the 30 second video on Facebook and it blew up… in HER face.

Uploaded by happy new year 2019 on 2018-08-16.

Initially, most people were hung up on the man’s mispronunciation of the name of the café where he suggested they go, and completely disregarded the intention of the video. He’d just invaded her personal space and had used her own inhibitions against her. Yet, he became a public figure as a victim of unjustified shaming. She, on the other hand, was declared as deserving of his minor trespass - and the shaming that followed, given the way she was “probably” dressed. She wasn’t actually visible in the video, yet, reposting Facebook photos of her in short dresses claiming “She was asking for it” was seen as perfectly acceptable, deserved even. The argument about her clothing is that she “dresses like a European, so she should accept this supposedly European behaviour” of being asked for coffee by random men on the street; “it’s not like he verbally abused her - or worse”.  

The consequences of these 30 seconds were fame for the man and complete desecration and isolation of the girl who lost her job, her reputation and even some friends.  

There are no social rights for a woman in Cairo. There are only responsibilities. She is responsible for her own reputation, as well as the reputation of the men in her life. The way she behaves is instantly a reflection on the men that she is associated with - father, brother, husband and, very quickly, son. Hence, the rush everyone is in to shut down her ability to self-express. A girl, we’re told in school, is a direct expression of the morals of her entire family. She is also an expression of where the entire society falls on the moral spectrum.

In the debate against the girl, people attacked her for shaming him. Her morality was reduced to not caring about another human, despite her own position of vulnerability against him. There were also debates on whether she had a good reason to be standing on the street to begin with. She put herself in harms way; as if harm is inevitable – and sadly, in Cairo it is. That same argument was used against protestors killed and injured in police attacks – why were they there? It seems to be the way we perceive the world in Cairo: harm is inevitable and it is our responsibility to get out of its way – fighting it, eradicating it, is not an option.

Once her own images came to light, a miserable twist occurred; people blamed her for her own misery. While his reputation deserved saving, hers was everyone’s property to do with whatever they wanted. The way she dresses was seen as unacceptable – skinny jeans are an abomination, and hence, anyone is entitled to attack her. She was portrayed in long posts as this demon that is out to destroy the lives of innocent men just going about their days by being a walking sin. In fact, someone claimed she was lucky someone was nice enough to offer to get her out of harm’s way – or rather stop her from being harm to other people, by simply existing in that space.

This brings us to the religion argument. Islam calls for modesty. A woman (and in fact a man) should always be modest in the way they present themselves to the world. Dress decently and – more relevantly humbly. A woman should not be a point of attraction. One argument against our fellow Egyptian woman was that she dresses attractively; hence she is inviting and should bear the consequences of her decision to draw eyes to her. These arguments dismiss the elements of that very religion that also demand, all of us, men and women, to cover our eyes from what we feel is too revealing. Again, the responsibility – of both man and woman – falls solely on the woman. Shortly after the incident, and another one involving the murder of a husband defending his wife against a harasser, Al-Azhar declared that harassment is haram (forbidden) in Islam, regardless of what the woman is wearing.

The main aspect of this situation with which I’m struggling the most is the amount of women that not only rushed to the rescue of the man’s reputation, but inhumanely and with painful certainty shattered the girl’s. From where I am sitting, seeing a video like this, all I can feel is admiration for her bravery at holding up a camera to a man approaching her on the street and not letting herself be paralysed by fear at what he could be capable of. She is not oblivious to the existence of plenty of people like him who would rush to his side and attack her; yet she proceeded to post the video online anyway. I would be terrified and I was and am for her. I still catch myself, after years of living abroad, scanning the area around me and making sure there is always safe distance between me and the next man on the street; that is after finally learning to walk with my back straight and pretend to be comfortable! Look straight as opposed to the ground and not speed up frantically when someone walks close to/behind me for some time.  

I have been wracking my brain, trying to understand or relate to how someone who walks the same streets I do, who witnesses the same things I have witnessed can completely break a fellow fighter-for-mere-existence like that. But then I remembered. When the declaration by Al-Azhar came out and after some discussions with friends about its possible value, it hit me. We have internalised this responsibility; it has gone so deep in some of us that they have managed to wear their adjustment to these conditions as a badge of honour. For those who are familiar with The Handmaid’s Tale, they’re the wives of Gilead, who are proud of their share in the oppression and use their place to abuse other women who practiced their freedoms.

An image from Azeri photographer Alexandra Kramer-Khomassouridze’s exhibition ‘Faces of Freedom’. She interviewed and photographed 50 women living in Baku, Azerbaijan about their opinions of freedom and the hijab.

I flash back to a time where I would cover up to leave the house, like it wasn’t about the street, like it was my decision, like my body cover is the way I should be, it is my invisibility cloak that will get me from point A to B without drama. I remember dismissing the incidents where it didn’t work. I remember seeing girls who dressed up and looked nice and simultaneously thinking they were making things harder for themselves while picturing what I would be wearing if it were up to me. And this is what I think it might all come down to – us thinking it is not up to us. It is up to society, to culture, to religion what we wear and how we exist – and society, culture and religion all tell us to exist in the way that makes life easier for men. Be ugly on the street and sexy at home. Be everything and nothing all at the same time. Saving our best for our husbands and choosing to follow the religious instructions because they are meant for us, to protect us and to make us worthy. Sound familiar?

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Something has always felt off about this logic but I could never quite put my finger on it. Until I attended a certain religious lecture where the teacher was talking about modesty and used her own daughter’s outfit as an example of what not to do. She then proceeded to warn us against all the ways men are horrible and how our protection falls on our own shoulders. She went on and on reciting instances where men have harassed women who fit the code of how to behave and left it for us to imagine what they would do if we did not even abide by that code. Religion was only there to protect us against those horrible creatures that are men.

I realised in this moment, that our practice as women, whether religious or social is entirely driven by fear – we exist on survival mode. Our beliefs are derived from an assumption of the inevitability of harm and the best we can do is follow whatever rules there are to keep it at a minimum. It was a counterproductive lecture, because her instructions were contradictory: cover up so men don’t justify their harassment, but know they will harass you anyways. Veiling up is not a religious practice to have a relationship with God, it’s a defensive act, one that comes from expecting the worst of others. This middle-aged woman does not know how to survive otherwise and there she was dooming us all to that same inhibiting mindset. And, sadly, I cannot blame her because this is the experience she has of life.

I believe that the girls who attack a victim of harassment are stuck. They have squeezed themselves into the role ascribed to them by a lifetime of instructions and threats and are hit every day by the uselessness of it and the possibility of an alternative. A slightly bitter theory would stipulate that they do not want that girl to “have her cake and eat it too” whatever the hell that means. They refuse to believe that a person should be able to do what she wants and get away with it, that’s just not how our society works. They attack her for trying. They have finally mastered walking the thin line society has set for them and see any alternative as discrediting their efforts, and challenging their place as the only group worthy of respect.

This perspective, sometimes translates into moral superiority. Once one follows the rules of how to be the best example of an Egyptian woman, they welcome the holier-than-thou entitlement. If someone is following rules that strain them, that make them uncomfortable they will constantly need to give themselves some motivation to keep going. They need this view from their high horses; they need to constantly reclaim this spot, through reminding everyone else that they are down below in the mud. A person who is satisfied with where they are, who is being themselves does not care where other people are in the field, in fact they hardly notice. They are content in themselves. 

And I say this from experience. I am someone who has struggled with the rules; I tried to internalise them, to fit in, to make it work. I wondered why I followed these rules and found it so hard while other people found it easy, and another group found it easy to not be concerned with the rules at all. I have envied both groups equally and for the longest time dreaded attempting to abandon the struggle because I didn’t know who I’d be if not a rule follower. Self-reflection is difficult, it requires venturing into the unknown, and starting on a path we’re not always sure about where it leads. But the one thing it leads to is a lack of attention to and concern with how other people handle their personal lives. But when our moral code forces us to live a life of proving to others that we are rule followers, a good following allows us to also meddle and judge other people’s choices. It would lead a woman to feel entitled enough to yell at me to “cover my hair” in the middle of the street. And sadly enough, the same applies for “liberated” women who attack those who find themselves in the social or religious code. Because believe it or not, veiled women get harassed and discriminated against too, accused of backwardness and assumed to lack agency and choice. The latest case in point, this Bar Rafaeli ad; not to mention their exclusion from spaces within their own communities.

Hoodies Winter 18-19

The debate on women’s rights in the world is on-going. It’s true that it is one of very slow evolution, but – well, it exists. We have women and more recently men (thank God – finally!!) all over the world, advocating and raising awareness about the recent discovery that women are fully human and they need to be treated as such…you know, be allowed to work and have equal pay and not have their bodies invaded.

In Egypt, we’re still discussing the right of a woman to safely walk down the street – to simply stand on the street. We are setting conditions for that; her safety supposedly depends on where she’s standing, how she’s standing, what she’s wearing and – pretty much her very existence. It is not true that how you dress protects you. You get harassed anyways; and it is baffling for those of us on this side of the fight to realise that there are women who do not see this problem. Who blame other women for their own assaults! And the sides are not guided by the way we dress, or how we choose to inhabit space. They are guided by our belief that women should be able to practice their personal freedom over their bodies and their life choices, and defend their rights regardless of those choices. But unfortunately, until a significant portion of us engage in self-reflection and practice mercy on ourselves and others, we’re not likely to go anywhere.

Resourceful

I appreciated many things about Egyptian mythology. What I loved most was that the Earth wasn’t a woman. No need to cringe over the treatment of the great mother, raping her of resources, or the fracking of her crust. Geb, Father Earth, completed the cosmos where he met the sky.

To be clear, I appreciate the beauty of a benevolent Earth mother, a resplendent Gaia in pagan Spring. Humanity tends to feminize all things with a womb and use it without regard for consequences. The problem here is not metaphor, it’s that what we own, use and inhabit is somehow automatically feminine. What we use or own is often, also, abused.

Once land and people started to hold monetary value they often became resources. Wealth, class and race divided people into workforce and landowners. In The Ascent of Woman Dr. Amanda Foreman notes the Code of Hammurabi was the first time that humanity defined women's limitations. Empires and households traded women for being able to produce more human capital. The only advantage to being a wealthy womb was a life of leisure as you despaired over the production of a male heir. The poor wombs not only had to produce enough humans to work the land, but also labor of their own to worry over. In either case, society tied women’s value to domesticity, birth or sex.

There’s a twisted symmetry to it. Outside of their ability to produce, resources have little value. Consequences to the resources themselves are only considered when they affect others. Consider how de/regulation follows a high death toll or the halt of a production line. It matters little if resources are sickly, as long as they can still make more. Endanger that and owners will make changes. Human greed or neglect is rarely to blame for dwindling resources. In fact, scarcity often leads to a greater control over any given resource. If there is only so much crude oil left, might as well make the most profit from what remains. It’s so much more valuable when it’s rare, after all.

A resource doesn’t have the ability to offer consent. Women themselves choosing when not to give birth is a political hotbed in every country. Women become lobbyists, activists or politicians and raise their voices. Yet congresses and parliaments ignore them as if they had no voice. Women and the Earth are useful in their bounty and wasteful unless they produce value.

It’s disturbing how humanity resorts to exploitation, and not only of the women of the Earth. All is insubstantial to the power of profit and woe to those who are essentially, valuable. Money can raise lobbies, think tanks, campaigns, and court rulings to protect profit. It is lawful for the Earth, women, LGBTIQ persons, people of color, the poor, and others to be resources. Global climate, economic and human rights agreements are attempts to curb centuries of abuse. A global wealthy white minority continues to reinforce and support these practices.

Harassment is on the international stage these days. It’s the everyday act of exerting power over someone who is vulnerable. They are not always women, but it is the women that humanity somehow finds the most difficult to believe. There are many countries where a woman's word is suspect, but the idea alone is devastating. How often is one accusation of harassment or rape enough? How many wealthy celebrities did it take to take down a Weinstein? Wealth, once again, does not protect those who have wombs. It was Alianza Nacional de Campesinas who sounded the weariest support. Farmworkers are no stranger to exploitation and harassment:

“We do not work under bright stage lights or on the big screen. We work in the shadows of society in isolated fields and packinghouses that are out of sight and out of mind for most people in this country. Your job feeds souls, fills hearts and spreads joy. Our job nourishes the nation with the fruits, vegetables and other crops that we plant, pick and pack.

The kind of thinking that leads to exploitation has consequences. Where and to whom we assign profit and value is racist and gendered. Worst of all, those who suffer from scarcity and abuse often disappear. Disaster favors the prepared and very few of us have the wealth or the insurance to recover from it. We dismiss those we lose to starvation and death in Appalachia, Sudan or Yemen. It’s always the strong that survive, isn’t it?

Reckless development as misogyny is more pernicious. The Earth is lying there, daring to be plentiful and lush. Drill baby, drill. Rape analogies for the Earth should make corporate development horrifying, but they don't. Horrifying because rape is horrifying. Horrifying because it drives people from their homes. Horrifying because it floods land and sea in toxic crude oil. Horrifying because it affects us all, gendered or not.

The earth is a celestial body. It possesses no gender, has no need to perform a societal role. It simply is. Humans still can’t seem to move beyond societal roles even if they shift over time. It has not benefitted more than half of humanity to be only as valuable as what they produce between their legs. It has not benefitted the earth to be only as valuable as its ability to sustain humanity. Identity and how we treat one another should no longer depend on biology or gender. There are ancient, systemic problems with how we value gender and production. We cannot solve equality or poverty overnight. So, I have a simple request to start the process: reconsider how you decide what or who is valuable. We can’t ask the earth how it would prefer we see it, but we can certainly ask one another.