As we speculate on the pros and cons of having a female president, I’m wondering if there is anything resembling data or information to inform my view of the Middle East and the endemic views of females there. Has, for example, Condoleeza Rice encounterd any resistance that she can regard as anti-female? Have other female heads of state encountered what they termed anti-female attitudes in that part of the world? Have any of the Middle Eastern heads of state expressed any problems in dealing with women? I’m hoping that there is something that answers this question that justifies its presence in GQ. If I want diatribe, I know where to go for it.
Bump, because I’m interested as well.
No cite, sorry (it would be in Spanish anyway), but the back cover interview of El Pais last… saturday I think… was with a female Unicef representative who works in Pakistan.
She said that, being female, non-muslim and foreign, she had access to both the men’s worlds and the women’s worlds; this has been very useful in her work. She normally wears a shawl over her head (as a show of respect, but it clearly isn’t what a local woman would wear), a loose blouse and loose pants (“very comfy”, she said).
In an interview with Spanish soldiers in Afganistan, months ago on Spanish TV, some of them explained that, when they arrived there with a female corporal, the locals would ask about it, “why do you take orders from a woman?” but more in a curious than agressive way. When they needed to talk with a woman, they’d learned to gesture/say “one moment please” and call one of the female soldiers over. The female soldiers had noticed that long hair distracted the male locals badly, so they’d either cut it as short as the guys’ or started piling it up into their berets, in a knot.
One of my coworkers in the US was an older Pakistani gent who’d lived in the US for more than 10 years; he was unable to adress a woman directly. When our all-female group needed a meeting with him, we would draft a man to come along. He never gave us trouble, just couldn’t look at us or talk to us. The ones who exclaimed “but, but, but they’re all girls!” were an older American and a middle-aged Mexican, though 
I realize Afghanistan and Pakistan are a bit further east than some people call the Middle East and the soldiers aren’t diplomats per se, but it was considered a diplomatic mission.
I have no idea, but we discussed a similar problem in employment law classes. EU legislation prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the grounds of a number of criteria, including sex, unless this discrimination is justified. Is it a just cause for preferring male applicants if a company is looking for someone to negotiate with clients in the Middle East? There’s no authority on that so far, but at least the fact that this is disputed seems that female do have problems as negotiators in the region.
When Secretary Albright came to town, all the big princes were always on vacation. At least officially. Still I did not see a downturn in our relations with the locals.
I was hoping to hear from Paul. Did Albright ever document any sense of that perceived dismissal in any memoirs or reports? Is there reason to dismiss the issue or to be concerned about it?
Not sure if this helps you at all.
April Glaspie was US ambassador to Iraq back in 1989-1991.
Barbara Bodine was the deputy chief of mission at the same time and place. She was later the US ambassador to Yemen 1997-2001.
This site adds
The Sultanate of Oman has
The US and UK ambassadors to Azerbaijan are both women.
Libya has two female ambassadors, one to the UN and one to the Netherlands.
Turkey has had two female prime ministers since 1991.
The Muslim country, Indonesia had a female prime minister.
In the early twentieth century there was British diplomat Gertrude Bell, who did way too much for me to list here. But she dined with Arab chieftains and was respected.
Karen Hughes was George Bush II’s BFF and Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. She went on a tour of the Middle East to show the world how friendly Americans are and accomplished nothing, because she is a cretin.
Golda Meyer was P.M. of Israel.
Re Gertrude Bell - it has no bearing whatsoever on the OP but I did recall having heard of her previously and find that among other things:
Which is a mile or so from me and it is where my second daughter had her wedding ceremony.
A very clever woman. With so many great examples to be found it amazes me that the bias still persists, defies all logic.
Yes,** Gala**, your post does help. It would seem to indicate that, in fact, female diplomats can be effective in the Middle East, in as much as several have continued to be dispatched there over the years. I’m interested, however, in their impressions of whether their gender impeded in any ways their missions. While the little I think I know about that region is completely based on 2nd - 5th hand reports, etc., I am still under the impression that many men there, including those in authority, believe themselves to be superior to women, and by that reasoning, would have a difficult time conceding anything to, or agreeing with a woman with whom they are negotiating. Do we have any reason to believe the women noted encountered anything like that?
This is a fun topic and I’m going to do more research, but my preliminary research indicates that these ambassadors don’t like to talk about that aspect of their mission.
About two years ago, I had a conversation with a Middle East expert who spent a very long career in… uh… working for Uncle Sam. He was of the view that the US needed an ambassador at large to represent the US to the Muslim world. He said that the ideal person for the job would have significant academic accomplishments, speak Arabic fluently, and be a man. (I always wondered if that was a honest, apolitical suggestion, or a shot at Karen Hughes and her job performance at the State Department.)
This in no way answers the question, but I’m throwing it in anyway. In the now quaintly-named RPG Twilight 2000 there was a module set in a muslim country. I forget which one but it was mountainous with bandit-chiefs like, say, Afghanistan. Anyway, the PCs are trying to make their way back to a place where they can be repatriated and come to a small village where they can kip for the night and get some badly needed supplies. If there are any female PCs, the locals will be disinclined to treat them as equals. If the party insists on equal treatment, the locals will reluctantly acquiesce (Hey, they’re soldiers – they’re honorary guys.). The whole party eats that night with the men and they find out what the men know.
If, on the other hand, the party yields (Sorry, girls but we got to conform to local customs.) the women PC(s) eat with the local women – and find out things the women know that the men don’t.
That R.P.G.Twilight2000 sounds a mean motherfucker,R.P.G.sevens have done more then enough damage in the area that you’re on about.
I really find it difficult to believe that these experiences are from Pakistan or about Pakistanis. I am a Pakistani and born and bred here, in the “big bad conservative north”, and I have never seen behaviour like you describe. Pakistan has had a female PM and female army generals here is a pic of one (http://www.ajmalbeig.addr.com/images/Pakistan/MajGenShahida.jpg)
Has a Condi Rice ambassadorial trip ever generated anything substantive, enduring, and positive?
I am not being snarky in asking this. I don’t know the answer.
But it seems that she goes all over the world, talks to any number of heads of state, and things stay just about the same or they worsen. If this is true, I’d say it isn’t all her fault. Her boss is a huge handicap.
Well, she’s probably picked up a few pairs of really nice shoes.
Oman is remarkably progressive as Middle Eastern states go; women in general society aren’t expected to cover much more than women in the West, and can hold a drivers’ license; suffrage is universal.
Note that all 20 female candidates for seats in the Majlis (legislature) lost in the last election, though.