This documentary talks about women in the Islamic culture. The first woman that is interviewed talks about how she was raised in England so she grew up with western culture and when she went back home because she wasn’t dressed like them or walked slow enough for them then didn’t speak to her in Arabic. When she realized that covering herself up and walking slower to adapt to how women were to behave, she says “It was a freedom behind the veil”. This is so different compared to our culture where women can wear whatever they want whenever they want. But similar to Chinese culture in the sense that women are supposed to wear certain clothing (chinse women binding their feet).
The documentary then begins to talk about education in Oman and how 25 years ago only boys were allowed to go to school. Another woman we neet named Moza, left school at a young age because she got married but now is a widow and has no children so she had to move back with her parents and is now in charge of keeping their house. She dreamed of finishing school and being able to come back to her town to teach but once she got married her husband no longer allowed her to do so because in his village women did not go to school. However, she is going back to school and plans on going back to her village to be a teacher. Moza has to be careful about what she says because her father and brothers are always listening in closely to her and when she is asked if she wants to get married again she says no. This is much different from the U.S as women are very much allowed to attend school, in fact, encouraged and it is against the law to not.
I found this documentary very interesting as it was a good comparison to the documentary we wanted about women from China. Comparing all the cultures gave me a very new perspective on a lot of simple things that I often take for granted.