2011

Bride and gawwaz el-salonat
An Arab Bridget Jones blogger who gives voice to female every-day narratives

Azzurra Meringolo

Introduction

This study gives evidence of the significant developments in Internet popular culture, focusing on the importance of the blogosphere as a prolific place where Arab popular culture can express itself. In the first part of the paper, I give evidence of this development while in the following parts particular attention will be given to the space that the Web gives to female narratives. In order to do so, this study presents the activity of a 30 years-old Egyptian blogger, Ghada Abdel Aal, who created a blog in 2006 to talk about the problems young unmarried Egyptian women have during their everyday life. Thanks to the importance of Internet, in the last three years more than 500 thousand users entered the blog and after this great success an Egyptian publisher, Dar El Shorouk, decided to create a book, already translated into Italian. A TV serial is going to be created too. Using both the blog posts and the book recently published, in this paper I analyze all recurrent subjects in female narratives.

In the second part I describe how problems of young unmarried Egyptian women are addressed in cyberspace and I present the longstanding tradition of gawwaz el-salonat -the living room marriage- and the consequences in young Egyptian girls' everyday life.

In the third part I demonstrate the ability of the Net to unveil taboos, by presenting the debate that emerges in the blogosphere about sexual frustration and gender disparity.

Finally I demonstrate the relevance the blogospehere acquired in Arab society and its ability to both open a debate on topics that were considered taboos until now and to connect people not fully integrated in society. Moreover, I demonstrate how satire has been used by this blogger to question women's passive role in the traditional Egyptian society.

The taboo- free Arab blogosphere

Arab blogs have caught the attention of Middle East watchers. However, most of this attention, is due to their political importance as a mobilizing tool for activists or as an alternative source of news reporting. From the second intifadah on, international journalists started to rely on bloggers as an important and alternative source. Though many researchers have already studied this issue, there is another interesting aspect that has been less considered. Blogging also has a new and perhaps a significant effect inside society. The emerging blogsophere has an important social role because it gives the chance to speak about issues perceived as taboos inside society. After decades of silence, those who wants to speak about forbidden topics, now they find in cyberspace the place they were looking for.

It is particularly interesting the way media, and among these blogs, enable and structure relationships among senders and receivers of ideas and information, as well as in the mechanisms of reception of messages and the perceptions of forms of media and of transmitters which circumscribe their authority (Ulrich 2009, 1). The origins of blogging are tied to those people interested in computers. The first Arab bloggers were young, technologically-oriented, and politically unengaged people. Although it seems clear that reading a blog in front of a computer screen represents a break in the common reception of information by old forms of media, the existence of comment threads on many blogs may introduce a new element into this "engine". Virtual space and time become more malleable and physical absence insignificant; reading a post means participate in the shared experience of the topic discussed, not only between each other, but frequently with the blog creator, opening to in a new way of social debate.

It is in such open rituals of debate that blogs' true revolutionary potential may lie. As suggested by the term 'cyberspace', the Web creates a virtual space for individuals'interaction regardless of physical distance. In the Middle East history, the most similar phenomenon could be represented by the rise of coffeehouses as a new space for community interaction (Ulrich 2009, 1) According o Hattox, in place of newspapers or public forums, the coffeehouse quickly became the place of exchange of information, where news of the palace or Porte was spread by word of mouth. A forum for the public ventilation of news, views and grievances concerning the state possessed the potential for becoming a political 'clubhouse' from which concerted action might be taken by those with a common distaste for the regime (Hattox 1985,106).

The anonymity provided by blogging is tempting for those seeking to escape from social isolation. As the blogosphere expanded and diversified, more specific communities began to form. Bloggers who identified themselves as homosexual, Coptic, Bahai, and salafi created blogs and commented each others' posts (Radsch,2008). Thus, another important function of the blogosphere is connecting people: those who are not fully integrated in society do not feel lonely. It is not just a case that excellent studies of women's use of blogging have been already written. And such involvement would have been impossible with the old forms of media (Otterman 2007), where a combination of conventions and the need for at least some physical communication made anonymity problematic (Weyman,2007).

One of the most interesting and analyzed aspect of the blogosphere is its democratizing feature. In most forms of mass media, only some members of publicly marginalized groups are able to participate in sensitive issues' debates. But since it is very easy to enter a blog,(it requires only an internet connection), anyone can jump in. Those people who would find either impossible (or only possible with an unacceptable level of sacrifice,) to say what they have to say by other means of communication, they often find it easier to work behind an on-line pseudonym. Since knowledge and the spreading of ideas are fundamental to social construction, the potential of blogging is to shift the forces that help shape society itself (Ulrich 2009, 6).

In this context I decided to analyze the activity of Ghada Abdel Aal, because she represents a young female active member of cyberspace. As a young user she fits the general description of a blogger. Moreover, as a woman, she belongs to a particular sector of the Egyptian society often discriminated. It is quite relevant to understand how this blogger used the Net to express her opinions and personal feelings. According to what Ghada said, even if it is not easy to speak about marriage or bride, the blogosphere context welcomed her feelings and her words. She felt comfortable telling everybody her experiences and her sorrows, reaching a great success and an important popularity that she would have never obtained in a different way.

Apart from the success and the visibility that the Web gave to Ghada, it is more relevant to understand this experience gave her the possibility to give vent to her feelings. This confirms that, in this case, the blogosphere became an important place where individuals could express themselves without being afraid other people's comments. Moreover, Ghada' story testifies how the Web creates an opportunity for those women who want to confront each other on topics perceived as taboos and a place where their feelings can be freely expressed.

Gawwaz el-salonat: a stranger knocking on the door

If in the previous part I described the significant developments in Internet popular culture, in this part I am going to focus on the space that the Web provides to female narratives. Using Ghada's blog as an example, I describe how problems of young unmarried Egyptian women are dealt with in Egyptian society. This blogger decided to speak about this topic, analyzing it from all possible perspectives, in order to help those people who haven't already understood the young girls' sufferings to know how stressed they are and how people judgments, often said carelessly, increase the stress they experience in their everyday life.

The primary purpose of Ghada's blog was not to attack Egyptian males, but to present and criticize the tradition of gawwaz el-salonat, i.e. living room marriage. Thus her target is not represented by Egyptian men, but this long standing tradition: a stranger is brought to the family home and a daughter must decide whether to marry him on the basis of this brief encounter. According to this, the blogger has often spent time describing the organization of these meetings. For men is easy to get ready to these dates because they just go with their mother to the house of the selected wife to set the conditions of the wedding contract and they finally decide whether or not the girl is what he needs. This is not the case for the girl's family. Here the entire family has to work hard to get ready for these meetings. After they worked hard to find a possible "suitor", everyone has to take part in the preparation of the date. Someone is in charge of cleaning the walls, the stairs and the floor, while someone else has to wash the glasses or the curtains. Moreover, when all this work has been done, the future bride is supposed to fancy up, according not to her style but to the tastes of the possible husband. In this contest the makeup may become a problem too because the girl never knows who is going to arrive and she has to be ready to be a "full option bride", who has to guess the tastes of every possible husband.

Furthermore, Ghada presents to her audience the socalled Aunt nosey parker, a persisting and tireless aunt who introduces lots of strange and unrealistic suitors to her nephew. This figure, a sort of benevolent intermediary who should save young girls to became spinsters, is a constant in the Egyptian women's everyday life. In a personal interview, Ghada confesses that she has been a victim of all her aunts who decided to make her meet any man with a heartbeat because, in their mind, this is the most important criteria for a good husband. The problem is not only that these intermediaries are unable to guarantee any success to the meetings, but also that the kind of men they introduce to girls are often inappropriate or inadequate to their profile. These sort of informal "wedding agents" do not take into account the real needs of these women, their personal or social profiles, their job positions or their behaviours. They are just worried about concluding a marriage as soon as possible, according to the social tradition that considers unmarried young girls both a problem and a dishonor for their families. This haste and insistence can explain why a young and well educated woman is forced to meet inadequate suitors just to get married.

In this perspective we can interpret the string of men presented in the blog.Through a satiric tone, the blogger dares to make fun of male members of the Egyptian society, underlining peculiarities or some characteristics in all of them, thus helping to unmask the widespread idea of beautiful, perfect and fully realized men. From the penny pincher to the cheater, from those who hit each other for a video game match to the telltale: the blogger pulls men's leg constantly. The choice of an ironic tone was not only successful to capture the attention of the audience, but also in line to the Egyptian people's attitude to make fun of their problems. At the same time the language used by the blogger does not undermine the importance and the sensitivity of the topics she is dealing with because the pressure that society exerts on young women emerges in every line.

Blog and satire: a chance to question women's passive role in the Egyptian society

After describing the long standing tradition of combined wedding, I would like to focus now on sexual frustration and gender disparity, two other important issues on the blog. Inside the Egyptian society it is not so easy to discuss topics related to women frustration, because they are often considered as taboos. As a result, it is not so easy for female members of society to find any place or occasion to express their discomfort. So if they live uncomfortable situations they do not have the chance to confront each other. What happened in Ghada's blog is exactly the opposite because here a community of unmarried women found a place to speak about their worries and to give voice to their discomfort. This is probably one of the most important result and merit of this blog because, thanks to it, these girls started to share their sufferings and to understand they are not alone and isolated.

According to the majority of the post received, marriage anxiety is the biggest problem suffered by young Egyptian women. One or two years after their graduation, the girls who are not engaged are considered spinsters. The more problematic aspect is that the pressure exerted by society is so strong that young women finish to perceive themselves as spinsters when they are just 23 and they did not get married yet. According to society, those who get married early are smart and the other ones who are late not, even if they are graduated and independent. Moreover, since their childhood, girls used to play husband and wife, when young girls has to choose their university career, lots of family members say them not to think about it too much because they are destined to live in their husband's house. According to this vision, young girls are forced to find an husband without having the time they need to choose a man fit for them.

The pressure society puts on marriage can also be cause of depression for young girls. In this depressive state, nightmares are common and girls, who often dream of past suitors, end up having men fever. After collecting a series of failures and going through so many bad experiences, women would like not to think about men anymore, but marriage anxiety gets the upper hand and causes more and more panic attacks. Ghada herself confesses she is victim of these attacks which include tachycardia and respiratory crisis.

Furhtermore, marriage anxiety causes not only physical and psychological problems to young girls, but it extends its negative effects to the entire family. In one of the most humiliating episode of the book, for example, Ghada tells the story of her mother who, holding money in her hands, tries to persuade Umm Mahurus, a door to door milk seller, to find Ghada an husband. This episode reveals a state of anguish in Ghada's mother; she considers her daughter's condition a tragedy and therefore she is ready to do anything to solve this problem.

Nowadays, lots of Egyptian single girls can provide themselves to their economic needs and they are not looking for a rich man who can guarantee a better future for them, but a good, polite and reliable man. Nonetheless most members of society continue to accuse unmarried girls to claim too much, that is why there is a widespread tendency to get married as soon as possible. This trend is more frequent among 30 years old unmarried women because, according to a widespread social belief, this age is considered a deadline, the last opportunity to get married and be a fully- realized woman. As a result, girls has to bear an increasing pressure society and they live in a state of emergency until they find an husband. In this background, tough, sometimes there are girls that have been waiting for a man for such a long time that they do not accept to find someone not fit for them. Some 30 years unmarried women have a very busy life and they do not think marriage is one of their priorities.

Even if both the blog and the book focus on marriage anxiety, it emerges that marriage does not solve all women's problems, Therefore sexual frustration is quite diffuse among married women too. It is quite common that as soon as they get married, women started to lose their femininity, they do not take care of their appereance and spend all their time doing housework. It is also relevant to understand that today, inside the family unit there is a role inversion between men and women. At the beginning women used to find a man who can take care of everything, now the entire management of the family is on women's shoulders; they are the only one in charge of what is going on at home. Egyptian husbands are described as insolent and quite rude and, in such a context, it is very easy for women to lose their femininity.

Furthermore, wedding anxiety leads to undermine the relationship women have among them. Even if all difficulties that women have with men emerge while reading the blog posts and the book, the relationship between men and women is a not fully developed topic neither in the blog nor in the book. Thus it confirms that there is no aim to attack or criticize men as a category. One of the most interesting aspect is how marriage anxiety influences the relationship among women too. It is quite evident that inside the family unit everyone cooperate with the young girl to help find a solution to her problem. In this context the old grandmother becomes the person who uses her experiences and her past sufferings to give important and detailed suggestions to her grandchild. But this kind of solidarity exists just inside the family unit, because outside the family house there is a strong competition. When the mission is to find an husband, women's complicity and friendship are not relevant. Competition not only is ruthless, but all relations between two friends are considered from this perspective. Using this interpretation, a girl is not a friend anymore if, when she gets married, she decides to introduce a man to someone else; this is the biggest betrayal ever. Therefore, competition is a universal keyword that prevents girls to speak each other sincerely or to express their feelings. As a result, women's ability to understand and to help each other disappears and social frustration increases greatly because single women have to fight not only to find an husband or to avoid comments of other people, but also to compete with other girls. It is hard for a woman to find a moment to be relaxed and sincere with other girls who are living trough, or have already experienced, the same situations.

In the blog other aspects emerge too, like some remarks abot the language used by society to address women, women stereotypes and male perception of women. Unmarried young girls are often called bayra -spinster-, a word that shows people's insensitivity and inability to understand women's states of mind. The blogger criticizes people's inaccuracy when they use this word that causes in girls great discomfort. Since they are 22 or 23 years old, girls do not like at all when other people use this appellative. According to people's perception, in urban contexts a girl is considered a spinster if at 32 years old she is still single, but in the rural context, this word is used to describe 23-24 years old girls who are still unmarried. It is worrying not only the way this word is used referring to such young girls, but also the tactless attitude when they use this word: people do not recognize they are affecting these women and they are inflicting them an unhuman suffering.

Conclusion

This paper shows the relevance the blogosphere acquired in Arab society. The impact of the media revolution is now evident at every level of Arab society, in every form of media and their interaction with society-at-large, from politics and business to culture and religion, as well as the way in which Arab media change resonates in the broader Muslim world. As part of this revolution, the emerging blogosphere had important social consequences because, after decades of silence, it opens a debate on topics considered taboos until now. As blogosphere expanded and diversified, identity communities began to form, and cyberspace started to connect people who were not fully integrated in society, among them women.

Considering this, I analyzed the activity of the blogger Ghada Abdel Aal to show how the Net gives women the chance to express and share their personal experiences and their feelings and to talk about common problems. In addition, I also wanted to underline the use of an ironic tone, both in the blog and in the book, as an instrument to deal with issues still considered taboos.

In fact, even if the tone used in the book is dry and ironical, it gives more emphasis to those passages where the blogger describes the real sufferings perceived by young girls. Even if she makes fun of these issues, Ghada underlines how under pressure women really are because they have to work hard in order to find an husband. This aspect is quite interesting because it gives us the opportunity to analyze how Arab audiences use irony and satire to address those uncomfortable topics that represent a trouble for the government and for official institutions. According to Ghada, choosing to use such an ironic tone was a successful idea to catch the attention of Egyptian people who usually make fun of their problems. Moreover, irony made the blogger brave enough to talk about her feelings with less shyness because, using a different tone, she would have never been able to confess her feelings and talk about her personal experiences with such honesty.

In order to understand the role the blogosphere plays inside the Egyptian society, Ghada's personal life itself is quite revealing. When, in august 2006, she decided to write a blog, she was looking for someone to talk to after the death of her mother, who was her best friend. Then her aunts decided to help her to get married planning dates with any man with a heartbeat, but she started looking for someone who could listen to her. Finally she found the blogosphere and she confesses that if she had not create a blog, she would have just kept all her feelings to herself. When she decided to write the blog, she was just looking for a place to express her feelings, and then she started talking about important subjects thus giving voice to those girls living the same situation, and questioning women's passive role in the traditional Egyptian society.

If the success of Ghada's blog itself is quite relevant, it is also important to briefly describe her audience to understand Internet diffusion among the Egyptian population and to discover who are those people interested in such topics. According to Ghada, highly educated young girls or boys, college students and graduates are the main people visiting her blog. This confirms the general trend according to which young people are the only one visiting blogs. As a result, this virtual dimension can be useful in social studies field to reveal young attitudes and to discover their opinion. At the same time, analyzing Ghada's audience composition, it is easy to see that the majority of her users are urban people with a middle or high level of education. This underlines that analyzing cyberspace is an important way to consider social and geographical differences, even though the access to the Net is increasing more and more every day.

Speaking about genders, it is quite obvious that the majority of people visiting this blog or reading the book are women: they are glad that someone is finally speaking in their voice and encourage Ghada to continue her work. Moreover, some of them started to create their own blog to express their personal feelings and to create a wider female society. Even though women visit the blog more, men do it too. Most of them encourage Ghada and they say the blog describes world they did not even know. She received some negative comments too, but the most relevant thing is that this blog brings men to know these important topics and help them to understand female experiences and their state of mind.

Finally, this work demonstrates how the Net helps create connection among people, even those belonging to the same society. According to Ghada, outside blogosphere creating a community could have been more difficult for women because on the Net, using alias name, they feel free to express their opinions and to share their feelings. This demonstrates that in this case blogosphere was the first place, outside the very close family unit, where unmarried females can feel free to speak and to confront each other on this subject. In the last pages of her book, Ghada says that the publication of her blogger activity was not only a personal success, but an important outcome for the entire community she created. Now most of people who enter the blogosphere are young and high educated persons, but Ghada wants to reach a wider audience to speak about this widespread issue that involves the entire Egyptian society. For the female community just created, it is important to increase the number of people involved in this debate because women's passive role in a traditional society is under question. They strongly believe that if women have the chance, a space and the occasion to share their experiences, they have more opportunity to make everybody hear their voice and make the world know their situation. As a result, the entire society may become more conscious about marriage anxiety, sexual frustration and gender disparity and, years after year, people can start changing their point of view.

References

• David Faris, "Revolutions without revolutionaries? Network theory, Facebook, and the Egyptian Blogosphere",Arab Media & Society (Fall 2008).
• Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985), pp. 101-2.
• Lynch Marc, "Blogging the New Arab Public"Arab Media & Society (Spring 2007)
• Eltahawy, Mona, "Arab blogs: or how I learned to stop worrying and to love Middle East dictators", Arab Media & Society (Spring 2007).
• Otterman, Sharon, "Publicizing the Private: Egyptian Women Bloggers Speak Out," Arab Media & Society (Spring 2007).
• Lawrence Pintak, "Reporting a revolution: the changing Arab media landscape"Arab Media & Society (February 2007).
• Courtney C. Radsch, "Core to common place: the evolution of Egypt's blogosphere",Arab Media & Society (Fall 2008).
• Brian Ulrich, "Historicizing Arab blogs: reflections on the transmission of ideas and information in the Middle Eastern history",Arab Media & Society (Spring 2009).
• George Weyman, "Personal Blogging in Egypt: pushing social boundaries or reinforcing them?" Arab Media & Society, (October 2007).