Yassmin’s Story

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  One boy in our tech class was new – not instantly cool but not a write-off either, jostling his way up the social ladder. However, I was the partial cause of a sudden drop in his status after an incident one afternoon.

  The boys were standing in a pack a few benches away from where I was working when I heard sneers aimed at this new kid: ‘What, are you gay, man?’ It was a common high school taunt in 2005. The laughs were mean, glinting with a hard edge and echoing around the high-roofed workshop.

  ‘Oh, man, you just love the D, don’t ya?’ More laughter.

  I wasn’t having it; these guys were just being bullies. I left my work and walked into the conversation, interrupting and standing in front of the lads. ‘Oi, idiots, shut up, will ya?’ They turned as one to look at me.

  ‘What’s your problem, Yassman?’ one said, twisting my name meanly. ‘Oh, dude, you’re such a faggot you need a girl to come to your rescue!’ he called out as the guy I’d been defending walked away.

  ‘Hey, don’t be a douchebag – just leave him alone!’ I scolded and the boys fell silent and returned to their design projects.

  I followed the kid into the next room, but when I tried to console him he didn’t meet my eyes, just muttering, ‘F*** off, Yassmin. I don’t need your help,’ as he pushed past me.

  I froze, confused. Why did I feel like I’d done something wrong?

  We live in a masculine society where girls are seen as weaker and less worthy, particularly by many teenage boys. The new kid felt ashamed at being saved by a girl – he had to be bailed out by a chick so he was no better than one, a feeling legitimised by the reactions of the boys around him. This is an insidious type of inequality, and the only way it will change is if we teach our boys from the get-go that women are equally as strong and powerful as men, even if their strength may manifest itself in differing ways. To show boys how to respectfully treat women as equal members of society, we need to look at redefining what it means to be a man, which is a conversation men have to lead for each other.

  I learnt the banter that has allowed me to negotiate these masculine environments early on from my dad, who loves a healthy dose of ribbing and would encourage us to be quick with our wit by getting everyone else in on the game. The first time my new best friend Chandni visited he told her, ‘Anyone who takes the mickey out of Yassmin is welcome in this household!’ Chandni’s parents were Indian and Dad was happy I was friends with the daughter of a fellow migrant, even more so when he found out she was born in Nairobi. This was lucky because Chandni and I were inseparable from grade nine until the end of high school.

  Chandni was a complete romantic and unlike me she was comfortable with accepting the seeming inevitability of our parents’ cultural scripts: women being the primary caregivers and homemakers while fathers play the patriarchal breadwinner role. We loved the same silly music, and like all teenage girls we spent a lot of time talking about our many crushes; even though I would never do anything about mine, I was her wingman through a few Bebo dates. Chandni was my refuge from the masculine waters I found myself constantly steeped in, an antidote to the battle I didn’t know I was fighting.

  Mr Stumpf left at the end of the year, and although the new woodwork teacher was outwardly supportive, his jokes made his unconscious bias clear. I was now the only female in the class and whenever I made a mistake he’d point it out and say, ‘Maybe that’s why they shouldn’t let girls in the workshop!’

  The boys might chuckle but I’d just call it out with an ‘Oi!’ when he made those kinds of jokes.

  ‘Oi what? You know I’m only joking,’ the teacher would say, and maybe he was, but it wasn’t conducive to making me – or any other female – think that this was a place where we were wanted and belonged. In previous years, the boys thought I’d been the favourite because I was a girl. Now I was the only female in the class and their prayers had been answered; this teacher was never going to show a girl favouritism.

  This was the beginning of an ongoing internal conversation I still have about what kind of joke I’m comfortable with in a workshop environment and where I should draw the line. Up until that point, the ribbing I’d been involved in had been good-natured, the jokes about me as an individual. All of a sudden, the jokes became about who I represented: a female in a male’s world, a Muslim, a migrant.

  There was quite a bit of teasing about me being a Muslim, particularly as the boys got more comfortable in my presence – and the challenge to their hormones I presented. I remember standing on one side of the bench, drilling some pilot holes into my shelving set, when a couple of the lads approached me.

  ‘Hey, Yassmin, do you have sex with your clothes on?’

  I laughed dismissively while they continued, the ringleader miming the actions while the others milled around, preening and laughing: ‘So, do you have to, like, hold up your skirt to let the dude in when you’re doing it?’ They looked at me for a response.

  ‘Nah, guys, of course not. I don’t cover up in front of those I can’t get married to: women, young kids, my family and stuff. When I get married I’ll take my clothes off in front of him like normal or whatever.’

  ‘So you can’t have sex before you get married?’

  ‘Nah, man. That’s the way it goes.’

  The guys looked at each other and burst into laughter.

  ‘How are you going to know if your husband’s any good then?’

  I shook my head and picked up my drill. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I replied. ‘I won’t know any different!’

  Banter is how I navigate difficult situations, but Mum isn’t a fan and tried to talk me out of it more than once, saying, ‘Yassmina, in my house, kindness and gentleness were the most important things, not signs of weakness as others think.’

  Rightly or wrongly, I’ve not adopted this attitude. Gentleness is as rare as hen’s teeth in engineering. Where it does exist people see it as an opportunity for exploitation, while more traditionally masculine characteristics are seen as the hallmarks of a leader. Our society needs to have a much broader conversation about what traits are identified as masculine or feminine, powerful or weak, but in the meantime I have to find a way to navigate the divides, so I use wit and repartee to speak to the masculine in a way that doesn’t silence my feminine. The balance is in finding a way to be kind in a cutthroat, capitalist world, while not being manipulated and subjugated. How do you ensure your kindness isn’t mistaken for weakness? How do you be vulnerable and yet strong? The women in my family epitomise strength but are not afraid to show affection and vulnerability with their family and loved ones, so I do try to draw on their example.

  It is unusual for me to talk about love and care as these are areas I tend to avoid. Admittedly, I have always been a ‘tough cookie’ and so asserting authority through joking around has been my dominant style in masculine environments. I am learning, though, that this is not the only way and I have started to follow the model of kind but firm leaders, including men in the oil patch, who are respected despite their gentler, more caring leadership styles. It makes me believe that we should encourage more leadership with kindness.

  Banter will always play a role in my life as a language that helps me connect with people, but I’ve started to embrace the strength in kindness, and the power and influence these gentler traits can achieve. To create real social change we need to use every tool available to us, so kindness is a weapon we can’t afford to leave behind.

  Chapter 9:

  Boys? Inshallah

  Grade nine was the first year that I became aware of having any sort of sexual value – I borrowed a friend’s Roxy shirt and almost immediately noticed a change in the way the boys in my class looked at me. The shirt was tight, showing off my figure like I never had before, and I didn’t know how to feel about the type of attention I was getting. It was certainly different to the kind of stares I got in my hijabi outfit.

  As I walked back to class that morning, past a group of boys lounging outside the ro
om, one looked down at me from his perch on the step. His eyes wandered all over me and his lips curved up into a smile. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but something told me I was meant to enjoy this. His eyes eventually looked up to meet mine and then flickered down again. He stared at the logo on my chest as he spoke. ‘Roxy, hey? We should call you Foxy to match.’

  I laughed and started walking up the stairs. My friend nudged my shoulders as we made our way to our bags and grinned. ‘He’s cute!’ she said.

  He was, but damned if I knew what to do about it. I avoided him for the rest of the year.

  I have had plenty of schoolgirl crushes in my life, religion notwithstanding, as any of my close friends can attest to, but I never let myself turn these feelings into a relationship. I was the kind of Muslim girl who didn’t have boyfriends, because well, ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat. Yassmin’s relationship status? Inshallah.

  My mum saw dating as a gateway activity; she was vehemently against the idea of me doing things like going to the cinema, particularly if we were going in a mixed group with any of the boys from high school.

  ‘One day, you’re going to the movies, next minute you’ll be wanting a boyfriend!’ she said accusingly. I still feel guilty about denying that statement during our argument because she was right: I did have a crush on one of the boys who was going to the movies that night. My mother was adamantly opposed to activities that weren’t aligned with our values, like tight clothes or boyfriends, and I felt like a hypocrite for having allowed some of those things into my life, and ashamed for not admitting it to her – or myself.

  The closest my father came to talking about boys with me was once pointing out that all my close friends were male. ‘You do know they’re only looking for one thing, don’t you?’ he asked after I told him about a new mate I’d just bonded with over a love of Formula 1. I was aghast that he was implying something more than friendship could be happening. How did he even know about those sorts of things?

  Aside from those brief conversations, I didn’t discuss love or marriage with my parents until I graduated university. I was twenty and had just finished my thesis when my father started making noises about me starting my own family. Somehow, Baba still thought I would follow all the traditional Sudanese norms! Bless. There are other norms that I do choose to adhere to, customs that are more important to me than the appropriate age for marriage, such as bringing up my children Muslim. I’ve also always planned to marry a Muslim, but that ain’t no easy feat in a country with less than half a million of us in total.

  ‘I just can’t find any good men,’ my friend groaned over dinner one night as the topic of relationships came up. It was something I had started thinking about more, having recently started working full-time and realising how much slimmer the dating prospects were in the workforce compared to my previous safe university environment. It didn’t help that many of the people I now spent the most time with were either married, or divorced and nursing their hurts. The work environment in the oil and gas community can put a lot of pressure on relationships.

  I looked at my friend, incredulous that she was complaining about her lack of options. ‘Are you kidding, gurl?’

  ‘I know, I know. They’re all either superficial or unavailable …’

  I sighed. I was winning this race to the bottom. ‘Habibti, let me break it down for you. Try finding a Muslim bloke to marry in Australia. That gives you like maybe 200,000 men to choose from –’

  My friend interrupted. ‘Wait, do you have to marry a Muslim? What’s up with that?’

  I sighed a little that I was having this conversation again. ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘Yassmin, that really surprises me. I expected you to be different, you know? You’re so different in all the other ways to other Muslims. What if you love someone and they’re super respectful of your religion or whatever?’

  ‘Babe.’ I stopped her. ‘I take my fundamental value system from Islam. If they don’t share that, then we’re not starting from the same base, which might be okay while we’re young and independent, but what about when we have kids and I want to raise them Muslim? Or if we’re arguing about something that meant a lot to both of us and I quoted the Qur’an or the Prophet and was all “the Prophet Mohammed (PBuH) says you have to treat your wife with the utmost respect”. He could turn around and say, “Yeah, but I don’t agree with that anyway.” A Muslim man would never dare to go there. If we’re both Muslim, we’ll sing from the same song sheet; I can exercise my rights with Allah’s backing.

  ‘Oh, and if I married a non-Muslim, my family, along with my community, would probably disown me. There are high stakes. The thing is, he’d have to be a hell of a man to replace my family, community, network and support system – and, potentially, my afterlife. That’s a lot of pressure.’

  My friend was taken aback. ‘Okay, right, yeah, I guess that is a lot.’

  I smiled. ‘So, back to the maths. If I’m looking for an Aussie Muslim bloke, that gives me maybe 200,000 men to choose from. Let’s say a large chunk of those are already married or too young, and you’re looking at around 50,000 lads. Around 30 per cent of the marriageable ones I grew up with wanted a wife who was willing to stay home and satisfy traditional gender roles, so they went back to their parents’ country to find one. Those aside, I’m hoping for someone slightly taller than me who isn’t threatened that I’m an engineer and could most likely bench press him, so we’re probably left with about 300 guys, scattered around Australia. How do you like them apples?’

  And with that, my friend finally capitulated: ‘Yeah, okay, I don’t have it that hard! But I still think that you could fall in love with someone who isn’t Muslim. Just keep an open mind.’

  So many friends share this sentiment, and I get the feeling it’s because they don’t understand that my religion isn’t something I just say I am; it’s the way I see the world.

  It was only in high school that I realised almost everything expected of me at home contrasted with what my non-religious mates did: Aussie popular culture didn’t usually fit within the boundaries of what was morally acceptable to my faith. My practicing religious friends, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jew or Hindu, tend to agree that for some young religious people, mainstream Australian society can be excluding, and occasionally feel tense. It’s all about walking the line between worlds.

  Muslims believe in fate, the concept of Naseeb, which is someone’s share in life or their destiny. Your Naseeb can also be a person, a partner that Allah has destined for you. There is a freedom in knowing that you just don’t have to worry too much about finding someone – that when the time comes, you’ll meet the right person.

  The flip side is Allah expects us to work at things. It isn’t good enough to sit back and think Allah is going to sort you out. Laziness isn’t going to get you anywhere.

  A bloke named Anas ibn Malik reported a Hadeeth that explains this perfectly. It’s about a man who asked the Prophet (PBuH), ‘O Messenger of Allah, should I tie my camel and trust in Allah, or should I untie her and trust in Allah?’ The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, ‘Tie her and trust in Allah.’

  Growing up, we were taught the phrase A3kila wa tawakal, which, loosely translated, means ‘Do your thang, do your best, and the rest is up to Allah’.

  All through university, I had almost complete control over who I hung out with. My mates, often male, were from my classes, from the race team and occasionally from boxing. ‘Hanging out’ was often just chilling at someone’s place, going out to eat or taking our cars for a drive up the nearby mountains. Because my friends were mostly from university, my time hanging out could all fit under the guise of ‘university work’ and so I didn’t have to justify and explain anything to my parents like I had to when I was at high school. I thought I had gotten away with it, not needing any difficult conversations about who I was allowed to hang out with, but that wasn’t the case. When I graduated from uni, my mother sat me d
own and informed me that I was no longer able to hang out with my male friends one-on-one because members of the Muslim communities would assume we were in a relationship, and an illegitimate one at that. According to Mum, it was inappropriate now that I no longer had the excuse of university work. If I was seen to be with different men all the time, particularly at night, it would ruin my reputation.

  I was infuriated at the insinuation and the expectation that I was going to abandon the lifestyle I had established and that I loved. I captured my anger in a diary entry titled Hectic Vent, July 2012:

  Ah!!!!! Just had the most ridiculous conversation with Mama about something I never thought would be an issue but honestly ya Allah, why.

  So, I am telling her I am going out for lunch with Dan tomorrow and she’s asking all these probing questions and I am like, dude, what is the deal? What’s with all the questions? She ums and ahs and eventually comes out with it: now that you’ve graduated, the rules have changed.

  What?

  Cos apparently if the community sees me meeting one-on-one with different boys all the time, my reputation is shot. My reputation is everything, apparently.

  Are we serious right now?! What are we, living in Sudan all over again?

  Man, I am so angry right now. Apparently it was fine when I was a student but NOW I’VE GRADUATED SO I PRETTY MUCH CAN’T HAVE FRIENDS.

  GAH.

  ALL MY FRIENDS ARE GUYS. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

  This is definitely an FML moment.

  Edit: Maybe I should just have stayed at uni.

  I was enraged for weeks. How dare she even suggest that I change my behaviour because of what people would think, especially when I purposefully ignored what people would say when making so many of my life decisions.

  I knew Mama was attempting to protect me from the reality that people would point to my behaviour as evidence that the West had corrupted me. That in training to be an engineer and an activist I had lost my Islamic values.