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Raising Radiant Daughters Part I: Dispelling the Silence By E.V., RAC I can see the scene as clearly as a snapshot. The yellow­gray Asian sky is weighted with its own peculiar blend of smells…thick exhaust fumes of heavy traffic, dust, cow dung, spicy vegetable fritters in a stall beside the road. There is a deafening blast of bus horns, rickshaw motors, and cinema music. There is all the excitement of being in a gaggle of sixteen­year­old girls set loose on a rare, chaperoned, shopping trip in a city thirty miles away from our boarding school. In the middle of this…in the middle of the bustle and noise, the heat and smells…just for an instant, everything stands still. An indelible event imprints itself in my mind. A girlfriend and I are just rounding a corner in the crowded marketplace, when out of nowhere a bicycle veers toward us and a man jeeringly reaches out and grabs my friend’s breast. There are many memories that pile up one after another when I look at that snapshot. In a way I’m puzzled that I should even remember the event. It was so commonplace. It was such a non­event. Such things were an everyday part of what it meant to be white and female in that Islamic culture. So I wonder a bit why that photo has planted itself so fiercely in my mind. It’s almost as though it wants to wave itself in my face and insist, "Look at this! Look! Do you see what happened?" So, I’m stopping now and looking at it. I’m looking at it individually, carefully…separate from all the other photos…the memories…the many happenings, large and small of foreign words and textures and tastes flowing through my blood, heaping my life with good, non­American, wonderfully "MK" thinkings and feelings. Yes, it was good to the bone to be an MK and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Having said that, I want to show you the one thing that makes this particular photo different from all the other sad and happy piles of MK snapshots. That one thing is the silence. That small abuse of my friend was…and has remained to this day …enshrouded in silence. Unbelievably, I remember that the two of us actually walked on without even a break in our step. Our conversation continued with careful nonchalance. And never, ever…not in over twenty­five years to this day… has it been mentioned between us. Maybe it is inaccurate to think of that moment as a single snapshot. Maybe I should place it in the context of a photo album. This is the album that stays at the bottom of the drawer and is never shown to anyone. It's the album of shame…of what it can feel like to be white and Western and young and vulnerable and female in an Islamic context. It’s the Page 1 of 6 www.womenoftheharvest.com album which stores the photos that didn’t turn out quite right…a photo for every stare, every rude gesture or comment, the touches, the pinches, the jostles and jeers. Photos distorted and smudged with lies about what it means to be a woman. A woman who, in truth, is so wonderfully God’s image­bearer…the delight of His eyes…the joy of His heart. I’ve been thinking about that silence and how it actually says quite a lot. It speaks mutely of resignation and of denial. It’s a silence that, when asked, shrugs its shoulders and ducks its head and kicks at the dirt. So let’s push at it a bit, let’s cajole it into talking. What is it saying by saying nothing? Clearly, the silence is voicing profound feelings of shame. "There is something wrong with being a woman. There must be something bad about me that attracts this kind of attention." Maybe the silence is also saying, "So what! This happens so often it isn’t even worth talking about. It’s a non­event.” Or perhaps it is saying fatalistically, "What’s the point of talking when there’s nothing that can be done? No matter what I say or do nothing will change. God called my parents to an Islamic country. Harassment of women is just part of the cultural package." I think sometimes the silence might be saying, "If I say something, I’m likely to be the one blamed for what happened. Talking will just make things worse. Adults will ask, ‘Why didn’t you wear more appropriate clothes? …Why did you make eye contact? Why didn’t you watch where you were going?’” Or maybe the silence is a simple statement of fact. "I won’t be heard so why talk? There are so many other more important things going on. My parents are so busy, so stressed, so exhausted. They’re in culture shock, in language school, overwhelmed with ministry demands. Why should I bother them with one more thing?" So much being said in the silence. Do you hear the messages more clearly now? Maybe it’s time for those of us engaged in raising young girls in Islamic contexts to think about how the cultural values might be influencing them. Maybe it’s time to pull the photos out and examine them in the light. What are the long­term effects of unremitting disparagement and sexual harassment on girls during their developing years? What are some of the distorted core beliefs that shape the silence? As we live and work in Islamic cultures, what can we do to raise our daughters radiantly, in grace, and beauty, and truth? The very first thing we need to do is to acknowledge that the silence does, in fact, exist. We need to expose the lies and wrong assumptions behind the silence, countering them with truth. Here are a few of those lies: 1. There is something wrong with being a woman. There is something wrong with me. The experience of shame is not unusual for girls growing up in traditional Islamic cultures. Even though a child may be nurtured in a loving, Christian home, she lives in a setting in which she is constantly barraged with ungodly messages about her female identity. This message happens at two levels. First it happens at the level of what it means in general to be female. In traditional Islamic societies, women are viewed as intrinsically Page 2 of 6 www.womenoftheharvest.com inferior beings. The sacred written traditions handed down through Islam (the "Hadith") present women as spiritually, physically, intellectually and morally deficient. They are inherently unstable, weak­willed, incompetent and illogical. Their physical attractions are an irresistible and dangerous entrapment for men who have no choice but to respond according to their primal urges. When directly and indirectly communicated during their developmental years, these messages about womanhood can be profoundly confusing to MK girls. They aren’t blind. They see women walking behind men. They see them veiled and hidden behind walls. They may notice that their Muslim girlfriends are the last in their families to get food at mealtimes, and the last to receive medical help. Sometimes they may even see them being physically beaten and abused. When a baby girl is born they often see a reaction of silence and disappointment. Deep down they begin to suspect that there is something terribly wrong with being a girl. To make things even more complicated, these MK girls also experience negative input regarding their Western identity. Throughout the Islamic world mushrooming satellite dishes feed viewers with vivid pictures of girls from western contexts. Often the assumption is that all western girls are of the same cut as those in the soap operas. If they see one walking down the street, they see her as "fair game." As early as age eight or nine, even when completely covered in culturally appropriate attire, these girls begin to experience being jeered at, touched, and pinched. And even at that young age, they notice that this is not the usual "curiosity harassment" they commonly experience as foreigners (The kind that says, "Oooh! Look at the funny yellow hair…look at the weird blue eyes!") They sense that this harassment is specifically sexual in nature. It aims at disparagement. It says, "You are contemptible. You deserve to be treated like a prostitute." It is not surprising, then, that MK girls from these settings can grow up despising themselves. Among my acquaintances are women ranging in age from 20 to 60, adult MKs raised in countries stretching from East Asia to the Middle East and North Africa. Many of them still silently agonize and struggle with doubts about their own value and personhood. I’m convinced that at least some of it is rooted in years of disparagement and sexual harassment that was never recognized or acknowledged. 2. Sexual harassment occurs in so many subtle forms and with such frequency that it is a non­event and should just be accepted. Another silent, but completely false assumption is that because harassment is so commonplace, someone growing up with it must simply get used to it…and if they don’t they are maladjusted. Like the ants, and the heat, and the dust, it’s just another lifestyle adaptation to be made within the culture. The longer we live in a hot climate, the more we learn to develop a tolerance to it. The longer we experience sexual harassment the more desensitized we become.

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