I am going to leave aside all the Ramadan articles for now, and write this piece. This is an article that, to me, is long over due, and perhaps much more personal, than it is political.
I feel like there is this assumption that I – being in the eyes of the society a bit independent, a tad opinionated, and a little bit strong – will somehow have to give up all these qualities in order to find a partner.
Whenever I speak of maintaining a mind, personality, and career of my own, there is always this response that this is somehow unrealistic: “dah kalam bokra tshoofy lama ttgwzy kol dah hyt3’yr w hatetnazely fy 7gat kteer” (those are just words, you see for yourself how once you get married, all that will all change, and you will make a lot of compromises).
The assumption underlying all this, of course, is that most men will not accept the prospect of marrying someone who has – what society has claimed – is too much personality. In other words, no ‘real man’ would accept becoming a “Mr. Elhawary” or, in Arabic, “Goz El Set”.
I never got this. I never got the whole notion of ending up with someone who is perhaps much too insecure to accept me for me. I also never got the assumption that it is His choice: the question always seems to be “tell me, which man will accept you for who you are?”. The answer is the automatically determined as no one.
This thereby creates the aforementioned assumption that once I fall in love I will have to completely change who I am. The response to all these notions and assumptions is what I am here to write down today.
Firstly, just to get this out of the way, why is the question always surrounding which man will accept me. The question to me is which man will I accept. This is not my ego speaking. This is not anything speaking, but the mere fact that I genuinely believe that when I choose a person to enter my life it has to be someone who is in not just in love with me, but also in love with my mind and my journey.
Someone who understands everything: from how hard I studied in high school to get accepted into the the university I ended up attending and graduating from, to the thick skin of independence I acquired while living alone, and finally to how important my writings and opinions are such a fundamental and ever – developing part of myself.
A man who chooses to see and appreciate those things, despite of the society we inhabit, is not a man who I think fits that aforementioned description of being a ‘Mr. Elhawary’. In fact, he has to be a man that is perhaps much more intellectually secure and sincerely strong from the inside – out in order for him to challenge what society has dictated an appropriate female life partner ought to look like.
Think of it this way. Would you like to be friends with someone who likes to surround themselves with people who are not as smart as he/she is, just to he/she can appear smart? Would you be comfortable with that level of insecurity in a friendship? So why accept it as norm for the man that I am supposed to spend the rest of my life with?
Why is me having a personality not something understood as separate from the man I am with? It is something that always lies in relative comparison with Him: be smart, but not as smart as he is; be independent, but not as independent as he is etc.
Why do those things exist for me, only in relative comparative terms, whilst they seem to exist for Him in absolute terms, So much so in fact, that I have to tune my personality to Him? The fair question is why would anyone want to be with a man who thinks of me in relative comparison to Him, not as a self – sufficient human being?
Accordingly, when you think of it this way, it becomes evident that the unfair statement is the one I, or any other woman in my position, often hears, namely “no man will accept being with you the way you are.”
Secondly, this notion that I will eventually compromise. Of course, I will. All relationships require compromise. But it is one thing to compromise, and it is a whole other thing to ask someone to give up their personality.
This notion that somethings can neutrally and benevolently be described as mere compromises, when in fact they are signs of wanting to have and possess a woman, is not at all something that suits me. Again, I say suits me, because it is my choice to refuse or accept, just like it is his choice to do so.
Finally, I never got the notion of marrying someone, under the hopes that you re – raise them after marriage. My parents are responsible for raising me, that ship has sailed, and if you do not like what they raised, bye.