worldwidewoman
Power
of Talk
By Vani Sar aswathi
“All the exposed belly-buttons
walking down Oxford Street or
New York put together, have
not given women equal pay,
not got women through the
glass ceiling...”
Everywoman’s
Quest for
Empowerment
A
ny information you seek
about any culture, law or
practice in the world, is
just a click away. Access to
knowledge has never been easier. And
yet, the misunderstanding between
cultures could not be worse!
How often do we turn around and
look at a veiled woman and assume she
is oppressed? Or at one not wearing it,
and brand her ‘loose’?
It would probably take just five min-
ute of dialogue to dispel either myth,
March 2007 30
or reiterate it!
And that is what Everywoman, a
magazine programme on Al Jazeera
English, is trying to do. Get women
from diverse backgrounds to tell their
story.
The Editor of Everywoman, Maire
Devine, says the programme provides
a platform for women to voice their
opinions.
“I have the right to ask a question,
as the editor, but I don’t have the right
to dictate the answer. Even if it goes
worldwidewoman
totally against what I believe in, I will
put the answer out there.
I am just the conduit. I don’t expect
people to apologise for their opinions,
just as I wouldn’t.”
Maire speaks to Woman Today
about what the programme set out to
achieve and has managed to, and in
particular about the special episode on
Iraqi women to be aired, coinciding
with International Women’s Day.
Religious Morality is Global
The programme wanted to look at
universal subjects, ‘something that
may not affect you directly, but will
affect all of us by default.’
“Women’s lot is the same every-
where. The nuances and complexities
are different, but it’s a thread. So if
we speak about female imams, then
we talk about female priests, an issue
that’s tearing apart churches every-
where. And really, the basic issue is
the same.
“We have explored rape for in-
stance. In Malaysia, there are still
no civil laws on this. We actually
persuaded a young woman, from a
village, who told her story, and of
how the rapist was asked to pay two
cows and two buffaloes!
“We don’t shy away from doing
stories from all angles. We are not
only doing stories that say ‘oh it’s
under Shariah and isn’t it dreadful’.
We went to Britain, and looked at the
laws there...
“Last month, the Crime Prosecu-
tion Services (CPS) came out with
report saying that the record was just
dreadful. That out of every 100 cases
of rape reported only five got convic-
tions. Which is a shocking statistic.
Bearing in mind that 30 years ago
Britain tried to put rape units within
the police. And it turns out that the
training hasn’t been kept up, the
awareness on how to deal with it is
not there... You have had 30 years to
deal with it, and you haven’t done
much.”
Even if you have viewed just a few
Maire Devine joined Al Jazeera Eng-
lish from BBC Radio 4 where she was
a Senior Producer working across a
range of programmes including the
flagship Woman’s Hour, The Food
Programme, Pick of the Week, All
in the Mind and the award winning
consumer programme You&Yours.
Prior to her stint at Radio 4 she was
based at the BBC Bureau in Washing-
episodes (over 15 have been aired so
far), it is immediately obvious that the
programme has stayed clear of cliches
peddled by popular media.
So a story on domestic abuse, drew
examples from the US, and it spoke
to the men who were doing time for
it. And one on AIDS didn’t look at
Africa alone, but closer home, a case
of an infected woman in Lebanon.
And then the obvious question is ‘ do
you stay clear of controversy at home, in
Qatar?’
Maire’s response is a vehement ‘no’.
“Nobody says to us, ‘look you
cannot do these things in Qatar’. We
have looked at divorce for instance,
on why the rate is on the increase.
About women wanting more inde-
pendence, changing dynamics... That
was about women in Qatar and the
region. We have spoken about dia-
betes, and how Qatar has one of the
highest incidence.
“We also spoke about migrant
women workers in the region. 95
million migrant women workers all
over the world, but there is no law to
govern them. Yes, we see news reports
of women falling out of windows and
March 2007 31
of being abused. Yes, 10 percent fall
out of windows and 10 percent are
very successful. But 80 percent have
no voice. It is those who don’t make
the headlines who are in the worst
situation possible.”
ton DC working as a news producer
including producing on the 9/11
output.
An experienced producer of current
affairs and feature documentary, her
portfolio of work includes the Lonely
Planet Travel Series, (Discovery) Too
Much Too Young (Channel 4) World
in Action (Granada TV) Late Show
(BBC Music &Arts)
Busting Myths
“My real ambition for the programme
is to get women talking. Forget you
are from the West or East or Middle
East. I am Irish, I grew up in Ireland,
and we didn’t have a lot of divorce
until a few years ago. It’s still very rare.
“My mother was a matron in a
hospital and she was seeing cases of
abused women. She was trying to do
something about it, and was almost
run out of town, because it just wasn’t
done. The local bishops said you
can’t talk about it, and if you don’t
talk about it, then it’s not happening.
Meanwhile, my mother was seeing
women coming in every night battered
black and blue, miscarrying, women
who were raped...but, ‘oh no, there is
no rape in the country’.
“When we did the interview with
CPS, they said that Ireland still has
a really bad reputation dealing with
rape. Religious morality rears its head
everywhere...”
She is quick to add that it is not
all about rape, abuse and disease on
Everywoman.
“We have positive stories as well.
And those are equally powerful. We
worldwidewoman
War, Women and Will
To mark International Women’s day,
Everywoman explores the lives of
women in Iraq.
What we see of them on television
are women in black, wailing, but not
wailing loud enough to scare away
the shadow of death and grief.
What happens when the cameras
are switched off, the wailing subsides
and the future is waiting to be faced.
Four women tell the stories of
‘Everywoman’ in Iraq.
But for Maire Devine, the editor
of the programme, the bravest is
the one who recorded the stories,
stealthily and anonymously, at great
risk to self and family.
“We would have loved to do an
interview with the young girl who
filmed this, but we thought long and
hard about it and decided that we
would be doing such a disservice to
her and put her at risk, if we do so.
Dalal Rubai
Something could happen to her. That
kind of television is not worth it.
“200 people are killed everyday, of
whom a 100 are married, that means
a 100 widows a day. Highest rate
outside of a war zone. Though we
‘see’ images of Iraq on the news, we
don’t see the women. We don’t hear
their stories.”
The four women who expose
their identity, grief and fear are a
journalist (Amna Frayeh), a widow
(Nadia Hussein) with four children,
the housewife (Iman Abd El Sataar)
with seven, and an activist (Dalal
Al-Rubai).
The journalist talks about the
hardship of reporting the war in her
country. The housewife talks about
her seven children and her fear for
Amna Frayeh
Iman El Satar
them. The widow talks about finding
her husband... her two younger sons
were with her, the two older were
with her husband at the shop, and
one of them runs home to tell her
that his father had been shot. And the
sons were a witness to it.
What they have to say is poignant.
“The activist says we were under a
terrible regime under Saddam, but we
were at least alive,” recounts Maire.
March 2007 32
“In many ways they are just telling
their story, it is political, but with
a small ‘p’. You are talking about
a female journalist who risks her
life, and who has been shot seven
times.
The housewife has seven children,
six of them girls, and she talks of
her fear of kidnappings. She has en-
AD
Nadia Hussein
couraged them to put the veil back
on, even though she herself never
wore the veil.
“We talk about the widow who is
alone now, and reliant on charity to
survive. They are mundane stories,
and for that very reason very pow-
erful.”
On the filmmaker, she adds, “She
was smuggling the camera around
to film the four women, she had
to smuggle the tapes out, then go
back to Iraq. And it was not an easy
journey for her, she was stranded in
one airport, and then her plane had
to turn back before reaching Bagh-
dad, because there was a bomb-
ing... yet she did it for us.”
And what is most admirable about
all these women?
“It’s so easy to leave sometimes,
so easy. And these women will not
leave. These women have such
faith and belief in their country and
themselves.”
 worldwidewoman
have done one on women in hijab,
training to be bodyguards and on
the first batch of Qatari female
paramedics.”
Unveiling the Veil
Some of the positive stories, especially
from the region, make a mockery of
the debate on the veil that goes on in
the west.
“My favourite (feedback)
is one we received from a
gentleman who accused us
of having a ‘hidden feminist
agenda’, and that’s funny,
because it’s not hidden...”
“Here the veil is also a fashion state-
ment. But in London or New Zealand,
it becomes political and religious...
People always say that you are a west-
ern woman and you are here in Qatar,
what understanding do you have. But
it is not that simple. Qatari women
here and Qatari or Lebanese women
living in London can’t understand
each other either. Their experiences are
different.
A perfect example of this miscon-
ception is the story of DJ Shaimaa that
Everywoman aired recently.
“She was a hip hop DJ on Qatar
radio, and a news reader, and she was
into water sports and she wore the
scarf. She had a full life. Then she
gets married and goes to England,
and there she is a housewife, and she
finds it difficult. She can’t get a job.
People look at her and think ‘oh, you
are wearing a veil, you must be an op-
pressed woman.”
And with that we come to the no-
tion of ‘wearing less equals
empowerment’.
Ridiculing this, she says, “It’s worse
when women think showing their
belly-button is empowerment. That
has nothing to do with empowerment.
If your world forces you to show flesh
or forces you to cover up head to toe,
it’s the same thing.
“All the exposed belly-buttons walk-
ing down Oxford Street or New York
put together, have not given women
equal pay, not got women through the
glass ceiling...”
A Question of Choice
What empowerment boils down to
ultimately is the right to choose.
Just as the veil is a matter of choice
for many, there are other choices that
come under scrutiny, too.
“We did a story on Tania Major, an
Australian criminologist, an aborigi-
nal. We showed her at work and we
showed her going back home and
baking. And there were people who
said maybe we shouldn’t show that.
But why not? It’s about choice. To
bake or not to. It doesn’t take away or
add to her success. That is who she is.
Her choice.
“Similarly, we did one on IVF
which is a multi-billion dollar busi-
ness. I may have my reservations on
a 67-year-old woman giving birth
post-fertility treatment. But I will not
bring my view to the programme. We
talk about how invasive the procedure
is, and how its long-term contraindica-
tions are as yet unknown. We do not
set the agenda, we ask the questions
– Where do you take away choices?
Where do you regulate it?”
As Maire reiterates, the programme
allows women to talk to each other,
and see if they can find a way to help
one another.
March 2007 34
“We get feedback from all across the
world. And we get story leads as well.
We have women writing to us from
Saudi Arabia and East Timor... We
even had women from Austria writing
and asking us not to ignore European
women and their issues.
“However, my favourite is one we
received from a gentleman who ac-
cused us of having a ‘hidden feminist
agenda’, and that’s funny, because it’s
not hidden...”
Dealing with Change
AD
Though no stranger to the Middle
East, having worked in the region
before, Maire still had to make a
calculated transition from the western
media – “I am a very privileged
woman. I came here and was given a
blank page to do what I wanted.
“Coming from BBC, it was a
conscious decision to have a totally
new outlook. Certain things were a
continuum. There is a kind of formula
for a magazine-programme, and that’s
international. How the stories were
presented, the mix, the angle – that
became a completely different thing, a
completely different treatment.
“For that you had to go out and talk
to people. You have to ask questions.
And you have to listen to the answers
they give, not tell them what they
should think. Then they would ask
for my view... it’s a discussion, it’s a
debate.”
And will we see Everywoman go
beyond a TV feature to a forum for
something more?
“We have talked about it. Maybe an
Everywoman conference. Just looking
at the idea of education and empow-
erment and build on it. You may be
educated, but it doesn’t necessarily
translate into empowerment. There are
definitely opportunities...”