Yassmin’s Story

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  My family couldn’t understand why a woman would want to do sport or be physically strong. ‘Isn’t that a man’s thing?’ they asked. ‘Are you trying to be a man?’

  I used to joke to my aunt that someone should write a rule book on how to live as a Sudanese woman, and she and Habooba Saida, my maternal grandmother, would just laugh.

  ‘Yassmina, you might think you are all educated with your schooling, but I’ll teach you about the school of life, Madrasat Al-Dunya,’ Habooba Saida would say. This was one of the relationships that defined my trip. My grandmother gave me a true schooling in being a Sudanese lady. Even with the cultural differences between us that arose, I deeply admire her. She epitomises the strength and wit people assume women who come from villages in Sudan don’t have. How wrong they are.

  Much as I enjoyed it, my time in the school of life was frustrating. I couldn’t understand why I was being judged on things that had nothing to do with my true character, and I found it perplexing that my cousins weren’t fighting for their rights as women. It wasn’t as if my cousins were oppressed; they were all studying or working and my aunts all had higher level degrees. Their command of both English and Arabic was exemplary; they were educated and well read. In fact, one aunt was running one of the biggest businesses in Sudan. I just couldn’t understand how they were happy living under these cultural restrictions. We seemed to value such different things, which was strange because in Australia I’d always believed I had Sudanese values.

  My Sudanese relatives also had a different reaction towards the community work my parents and I have so much passion for. My family in Sudan seemed to put more importance on getting together and doing things for the family, rather than helping those we weren’t related to. Perhaps giving back to the community was more linked to my parents’ migrant experience than I had thought.

  When I asked them why they didn’t get involved in community projects like YWB in Sudan, one cousin’s perspective shed some light on how they viewed this kind of work:

  ‘It’s so cool that you’re travelling and doing all this stuff, Yassmina, but that’s your world. We have accepted our world and how we operate in it, and it’s not as bad as you think! We know the role we have to play to be a good woman, a good wife, a good Sudanese person and a good Muslim, so we do that. We don’t want to make our lives harder by looking for things that we don’t really need.’

  My cousin saw my involvement in advocacy as something that also challenged accepted gender roles in society, and that wasn’t something she was interested in; her perspective was to accept her lot in life and just enjoy it within its limits. I didn’t know how to feel about that, or if I was even allowed an opinion. It may frustrate me that Sudanese culture dictates how to be a ‘good woman’ but if I approach the topic with the attitude that my way of seeing the world is ‘right’, I’m no better than any British colonial. After all, the gender roles in Australia can also be restrictive, just in different ways.

  My aunt echoed a similar sentiment to my cousin. ‘You might look at me and say, “She has a degree but she’s sitting at home – how oppressed is she?” But I love taking care of the house, cooking, and being there for my family. I work, but I do hours that will suit my family. You might disagree, Yassmina, but the woman is better suited to bringing up a family. You can’t have a home without a mother.’

  By and large, the women I talked to wanted to be caregivers and homemakers; they were happy in that role. These kinds of conversations bothered me. I started to wonder if the West really had corrupted me, and if it was crazy to expect my path in life to be whatever I wanted it to be, despite pre-existing gender roles and expectations that have been built over centuries. It was the first time I considered the idea that as a woman, my role as a procreator and a homemaker could be just as important, if not more so, than my career.

  I was told Sudanese women consider it their Islamic duty to be the caregivers and the homemakers. I would later find out that wasn’t necessarily true. Some people believe that attitude came from a patriarchal reading and interpretation of the source texts. At the time, however, I had no one I could ask except those who had grown up in Sudan and thus absorbed the values around them.

  If fulfilling the ‘traditional’ gender role of a woman was an Islamic duty, my fundamental beliefs as to who I should be were being challenged, and I was lost! How did I reconcile my faith with my Sudanese heritage and my Australian cultural upbringing? Travelling back to Sudan as an adult had unsettled my way of seeing the world. I wasn’t sure which direction was north. It was the only time in my life I ever called my mother, homesick and in tears, born of frustration and confusion.

  I was torn between forgetting everything I’d learnt in Sudan so I could continue to live in Australia as I always had, disregarding gender in my decisions, or following the path of my cultural background, making choices largely based on society’s gender roles. With religion thrown into the mix, it became soul-wrenching. The school of life set hard exams, yo.

  Back in Australia, I had considered myself Australian with Sudanese values. I was different from the white kids at school and that gave me some connection with Sudan and with the migrant and Muslim communities. Get any two brown (or third culture) kids together and they will start comparing notes and laughing at the times their parents did ‘migrant things’ while they were growing up, like staying up all night to tell you off if you were home late, giving you curfews, sending you to parties with your traditional food, or expecting you to spend the weekend cleaning the house or being with the family because relatives were visiting. A white friend might ask you to skip the family get-together to come and hang out, but an ethnic friend never would, because they knew how it worked. Family was always number one.

  So I thought I knew what Sudanese values and communal living were. It wasn’t until I spent real time in Sudan that I realised my version of communal, what I thought were ‘Sudanese values’, weren’t actually that. I had always told people ‘straddling cultures’ was great because you got to pick the best of both worlds, and in a way you do, but it can also be uncomfortable when you realise your two worlds aren’t always compatible. With the acknowledgement that it wasn’t as easy being from both worlds as I’d thought, came the realisation that I might not be able to have it all as a woman, either. So is it possible to be truly African-Arab, communal and Eastern while also being Australian, Western and individualistic?

  Damn skippy, it is. Whoever said we had to do the done thing?

  There is a middle ground, and that is the path I choose to take, Inshallah – one that is informed by the fact that I’m a woman but isn’t limited by it.

  Chapter 22:

  Family and Marriage

  ‘Who exactly do you think you are?’ My mum’s voice was cutting.

  I’d just asked if she would let me move out with some university friends. She looked at me with her I-can’t-believe-you’re-asking-that face, an expression I saw every time I stretched the boundaries of my Sudanese-Australian household.

  That was the end of that conversation for, well, ever. It didn’t help my cause that I had asked to move out with a couple of Aussie guys, engineering colleagues. What was I thinking?

  In Sudan, people don’t leave home until they’re married, and even then the newlyweds will often stay in the same building. Sudanese families always live close to each other, which is why FIFO (fly-in-fly-out) work seems insane to most of my extended family. I actually still don’t know how I get away with it.

  In Sudan, an individual is seen as no more than one cog in a larger machine, be that machine the family or the tribe. In that community-centric culture, your actions do not reflect solely on you, but on your entire family and tribe, which changes the way most people approach their decisions.

  This creates an intersection between the great respect given to education and the equal respect that is given to marriage and the importance of being a ‘woman’ who knows how to hold a house together. The strength requi
red to run a household successfully is as highly valued as that required for a successful career.

  This means that even though many of my cousins are well educated, they are equally valued for their ability to be excellent homemakers. It’s an accomplishment they’re proud of. These are women who have travelled around the world, some choosing to live in Western nations like Canada and Australia, but who still felt strongly about fulfilling their traditional female gender role while also following their careers.

  I have often reflected on this attitude. In many Eastern societies the role of a woman as a mother offers her a level of social status that men have no access to. At times, that value becomes skewed or hyperbolised, like the tradition in some parts of the Gulf of calling women by their connection to their first son – using ‘Um Ahmed’, meaning the ‘Mother of Ahmed’. But women are appreciated in this role of the mother and as the leader of a household, while in the West there is a common perception that a woman who stays at home for her family has less power than one with a successful career. I have often wondered what my mother ‘could have done’ had she not given up part of her career to focus on motherhood. Does that imply I view one path as more valuable than the other?

  The issue for me is choice. While it is important that women are respected in the family if they choose to be a mother, the choice to aspire to something apart from motherhood should be equally valued, and I don’t think the East or the West has this balance right yet. Motherhood in both types of society is still wrapped up in the concept of being a ‘good woman’ and what that entails. Do we end up in a situation where women are pressured into motherhood by society’s expectations – and if so, is this something we are okay with? Am I barking up the wrong tree?

  One of the fundamental differences between my Sudanese-bred cousins and me is our mindset. Despite being brought up in a Sudanese household, I had absorbed some of the individualistic characteristics of Australian society, something I had begun to recognise after my extended stay in Sudan. Being a Caramello egg changed my approach to making decisions.

  On my trip I struggled to understand why my cousins didn’t want to do anything too far outside the norm.

  ‘Would you do what Sudan and Sudanese people think is right even if you don’t really want to or don’t agree with it?’ I asked my cousin, trying to understand her perspective.

  ‘It’s not really like that,’ she said, searching for a way to explain. ‘If I want something, but if the family thinks it’s a bad idea, I will probably go with what they think because they’re older and wiser than me. They know what is best, and they might understand things that I don’t yet. It’s like, if you loved someone and wanted to marry them but no one in your family approved, would you still marry them?’

  I actually might, I thought, surprising even myself. My parents had always accused me of doing what I wanted to do regardless of whether or not it matched their expectations. I didn’t act maliciously, but my decisions usually came down to what I wanted. I once tried to tell my mother that I was driven by duty and obligation and she laughed at me, saying, ‘No, you’re not! You don’t do anything out of duty!’ When I’d protested, she’d pointed out that if I didn’t want to do something, almost nothing would make me do it – and certainly not a concept like duty.

  I was having a similar moment of realisation now, in response to my cousin’s question.

  ‘I would be quite stuck, I think,’ was my eventual reply to her.

  ‘I wouldn’t. Why would I be with someone who would damage the relationship between my family and me?’

  The opinion of her family, her tribe, mattered to her beyond my belief. Initially, I dismissed her response, thinking that it indicated a lack of agency, a lack of strength of character that made her unable to make a difficult choice, but as I spent more time with my cousins as an adult, I started to see it in a different light. Rather than viewing these decisions through the lens of my personal, individualistic understanding, I learnt to see them from a community perspective. If the most important thing was not the fulfilment of your own personal desires but the safety, security and fulfilment of your family and tribe, your decisions had a different meaning. The most important factor is no longer your personal desire, but is how your choice affects those around you.

  Naturally, not all women in Sudan fit into that mould. Some of my other cousins were more similar to me in personality and drive and were not impressed that they were meant to settle down early and live an ‘acceptable’ life. These were the cousins I could most relate to – the Mac-owning, squash-playing, backpacking cohort that still somehow exist in the Sahara Desert. However, if my family at home in Brisbane is visited by another Sudanese or Arab-African family, my Sudanese breeding immediately kicks in and I go from a terribly outspoken, opinionated, sassy chick to a relatively demure housewife-in-training. I sit politely and listen to the conversation, but only after I have served each guest with a cold drink, brought out the biscuits, neatly arranged on a plate, and then prepared and served the tea – made with cloves, cardamom pods and just a little cinnamon. When a few families come around, the women and I automatically peel off into the kitchen and the second living room so that we are separated from the men. So, even in the Australian-Sudanese community, there are strong gender roles that I find myself adhering to, so that I don’t attract criticism for acting outside the social norm. In these situations I also conform because otherwise my actions would reflect badly on my parents, as well as on myself. I owe it to my parents to show people in the community that we were brought up ‘well’.

  The pressure for women to have it all is intense. In Sudan, having a family as well as a job isn’t just an option but is an expectation, although there are some structural mechanisms that make parts of this journey easier to achieve than in Western societies.

  In Sudan, if you are part of the wealthy classes and wish to work, typically your extended family can help look after the kids while you pursue your career. This is made simpler because you usually live quite close to each other, if not in the same building. However, there are also class and socio-economic factors at play, and although that choice might be available for Sudanese upper-and middle-class families, for the lower classes, the options for women are much more limited.

  For women in any society, difficult choices have to be made around family and work. But the stakes are often higher for those living in a communal society, as your choices are not deemed yours alone; they reflect on your parents, your extended family, your upbringing. The power of tradition and ‘not wanting to bring shame to the family’ is strong. The fact that women in collective societies often go along with societal traditions does not make ‘all Muslim women oppressed’ or ‘all Arab women pushovers’. When a woman in Sudan chooses her own path, this is often ‘claimed’ by the West as a ‘win against the barbarians’; this is insulting to her and to her culture, because the culture is something she most probably still values.

  Yes, there are women around the world who are oppressed and some of them happen to be Muslim. But their Islam is not the cause of their oppression; the cause is usually the regime they are in, their economic circumstances, or the patriarchal environment and culture. To me, this is very clear, but it is something that seems to be difficult to communicate. The women I grew up with – my mother and the other women in my family and community – are nothing like the images of a ‘Muslim woman’ that are sold to ignorant audiences. The public commentary about Islam (and Africa!) is so far removed from my actual experience of it that sometimes I find it difficult to believe the commentators are talking about the faith I hold dear and the values by which I live my life.

  Western societies need to appreciate that there is more than one way to do things and more than one way to be ‘right’. There needs to be a move away from the idea of the implied superiority of Western civilisation. The choices women from the East make are not anyone’s to control or dictate.

  I often ask myself: is it wrong to continue pa
rtaking in traditions you know are based on patriarchal or potentially problematic historical contexts, in order to keep the peace? I don’t know the answer to that question just yet.

  Chapter 23:

  On the Rigs

  ‘Alllllllahhhhhhhhhhhu Akbar, Alllahhhhhhh–ahhhh–ahhhhhhhu Akbar!’

  I looked around me, stunned. Where was that coming from?

  It was 4 am and I had just walked into Cobham airport, Perth, to check in for a flight up to the oil and gas rigs. The small terminal was packed to the rafters with men in high-vis clothing and steel-capped boots and I fit right in with my faded tangerine number. Threads were trailing off the silver reflective strips on my arms, adding legitimacy to my outfit.

  ‘Alllllllahhhhhhhhhhhu Akbar, Alllahhhhhhh–ahhhh–ahhhhhhhu Akbar!’

  I swore as I realised the sound was coming out of my bag. Dropping the fifteen-kilogram duffel, I began searching for the offending equipment: my phone.

  In an effort to encourage myself to wake up on time for the morning prayer, I had downloaded an app called Never Miss Fajr, which would play the Adhan (call to prayer), super loud until the person answered five Islamic-based trivia questions to confirm they were awake. Brilliant, right? Except that I’d forgotten to switch the app off before heading to the airport that morning, and it just so happened that prayer time coincided with my passage through security.

  Bloody perfect, I thought, as I searched through the bag, cursing myself for having packed in a rush that morning. The other rig and mining guys started looking at me from the corners of their eyes, although some were less subtle and just blatantly eyeballed me. I was holding up the queue to go through security and nobody was impressed. I could only imagine what they were thinking. There were no other people of colour in that airport that morning, and definitely no one who looked remotely Muslim, even though some rigs are actually quite diverse. It wasn’t my lucky day …