2014-07-23

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“You’re too old, Doctor”

Hey friends. Alhamdulillah, this friendship is really blossoming. According to my grandmother those are the ones that feed good girls with the wrong ideas! Go figure. I digress. Over the last three weeks we have bonded and developed both as women as well as friends. My friend Raeesa has at times driven me up the wall, but ultimately we have helped each other face our own worst fears. Today I have invited the girls to my bridal shower and Raeesa finds herself facing a difficult truth. She may not be so totally career-driven as she thought. Is the doctor allowed to crave a family and partner or is she turning her back on her hard earned degree?

Love & French macrons <3

“Oh my word, I have all these guests in my house and all they can talk about is my wedding, please come and save me,” Aisha had cried earlier. Now I sat here together with Saaliha in a roomful of strangers as they giggled over wedding jokes and crazy advice for the bride. Aisha, sitting with her face messed up, was laughing hysterically and having a ball. I was furious. A bridal shower? Ridiculous! Besides, it was almost as if the Aisha I knew and respected was gone, and here sat a perfectly brainless girl instead.

The night passed in fun, and I sat stony-faced. Even Saaliha enjoyed the fun. Finally after most of the visitors had cleared up, and we gushing over the stunning gifts, something in me snapped: “I can’t believe you would invite me to such a thing!” I burst out.

Both Saaliha and Aisha turned to look at me in shock. There were tears running down my face and I was shaking. My voice choked. I had no idea what brought this on.. My two friends in a hurry grabbed tissues, and began soothing me while I bawled my eyes out. After a while the tears subsided and looked up to two questioning faces.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that, I hadn’t realised you were so against bridal showers,” Aisha apologised.

I immediately grabbed the excuse she had created for me, and began arguing with her saying it was so wrong for a girl to attend a bridal shower and suddenly becoming all holier than thou. Saaliha looked at me with narrowed eyes as I continued with my tirade. I was using Islam to hide behind the actual reason I was feeling so terrible. Saaliha (with ice in her voice) said: “I don’t think you have any right to use the whole Islamic thing with us, and even if it is wrong, you lived in your own apartment whilst studying! Don’t think we don’t know. And right next to an all-boys flat! People in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones!”

I glared at her and retaliated: “Well at least I didn’t leave an Islamic girls school because the private co-ed school has more extra curricula’s and a better education! Who turns their back on a Muslim environment just for extra marks!”

Aisha, who had been sitting quietly, stood up and looked me in the eye. I keep forgetting that she is a woman of such confidence when I see her all giggly and starry-eyed with wedding stuff. “Come now Raeesa, tell us what is the real problem . You are always so calm, it must be something really big for you to be so upset. and I don’t buy that buzruq act! I agree bridal showers aren’t good or right, but my family refused to listen to me. So what really gives?”

I sheepishly looked at my two friends, and in and off-hand tone I said: “Well it’s really difficult being the oldest here and not married.”

I felt so embarrassed, but somehow, they understood. I had dedicated myself to studying and my career. I really loved all that I had accomplished, but a little part of my brain craved the excitement of a wedding, the comfort of having a partner and most of all that feeling of being part of your own family.

Aisha calmly put her hands around me and said, “If you expect us to feel sorry for you, you have it all wrong. What is this nonsense that a career girl is made from stone? Your body and mind may be more educated, but it works the same as all young women. We love giggling and talking nonsense, lamenting our weight and swopping marriage tips. Yet at the same time, I can walk into an audience and give a dynamic talk, or you can go into a theatre and perform a five hour operation! You enjoy your career but you are a woman also. You’re human girl!”

I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard her talk. I had thought my hormones were trying to kill me or something! I guess it is normal and totally understandable if you are a girl and find yourself craving to do what all your friends and family are doing. I jumped up and grabbed them both in a tight hug, thanking Allah for granting me friends who so thoroughly understood all my fears.

~~~
Points for Discussion:
1. The same old story we’ve heard a million times over – the great injustice done unto women when the heads are counted and they are not equally represented in the upper echelons of society. Yet, we have to wake up to ourselves and admit that human beings are complex and diverse creatures, that biology dictates far more of our behaviours and lives than we’d like to admit, and that the sun does not revolve around the Earth — no matter how much a social trend stamps its feet and demands that it should.

How should young women deal with this. They receive mixed messages galore. And so much is manipulated and justifed to be a ‘Deeni’ attitude.
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