I'm Not A Spinster*
*The following text was a simple translation of the attached article:
I'm not a spinster
A friend told me about a special discount on train tickets across German cities during the winter of 2016 and invited me to visit her in Munich. All I knew about Munich was the 1972 massacre**, its racism towards Arabs, and the Nazi camp that was there. When I got on the train, I found out that all the people looked rich. I could smell their luxurious perfumes while their faces were hidden behind their expensive cell phones. I felt I was in the wrong place as my ticket was for economy class. I didn't want to leave, it was a good experience to feel rich for a while. However, my experience didn't last long as the waitress came to tell me to return to the back of the train where the economy class ticket holders were supposed to be.
I moved there where the poor people like me were. I found a lot of the travelers were standing as there were not enough seats.
I sat on the floor beside a power plug to charge my phone and I accessed the internet. I ordered a coffee with milk and checked my Facebook page where I found a message from my university professor in Gaza. He asked how I was and what I was doing in Germany. I told him I was doing training in Deir Spiegel and that next year I would travel to UK for a scholarship. He then asked me directly if I had married. I replied that I was still single. He immediately told me that he had a good friend who wanted to get married and was looking for a good girl like me. Without waiting for my answer, he sent his photo via messenger. It was a big shock to find out that the prospective groom was in his sixties, a widower and had children. This was an obvious statement that I had officially started to be considered a spinster.
I was told before that I would not be able to marry a single young man once I had reached my thirties. That neither annoyed me nor threatened my dream of becoming a wife and a mother one day. But words turned into actions when I received a marriage proposal from a widower in his sixties. I felt humiliated and cried my eyes out amidst the German crowd. I didn't want to stop crying, crying was all I wanted to do then. I didn't cry because I was worried about my marital future. I cried because while I saw myself as a successful, strong independent woman, the society only looked at my age. For them, being older meant that I didn't fit into the perfect bride classification. It was maybe due to the wrinkles which had started to appear under my eyes or due to my decreasing possibilities of childbearing. I don't really know their reason but all I knew was that I wasn't as good as a girl in the beginning of her twenties.
Many statistics are given about spinsterhood every year and many comparisons are made between the percentages of Arabic countries. All the news websites talk about unmarried women while turning a blind eye to unmarried men. Strangely enough, statistics don't clarify if spinsterhood is related to the girl's own decision of not getting married or it's just an unfair classification attributed to every single woman regardless of her personal conditions.
I'm from Gaza strip where I was always told; "catch your opportunities, all the men have died in wars."
Why does being unmarried have to be linked with a title? Why do I have to be single in my twenties and a spinster once I reach my thirties? I can't find an answer. This is not the only issue that underestimates women and makes them like products that have an expiry date. A lot of marriage proposals depend on the girl's skin color, height, weight. As well as that, the girl's dowry goes up depending on her physical appearance and virginity. So if previously married, her opportunities shrink and she is also called a spinster.
For me, that was the first marriage proposal but it wasn't the last. Today after two years, I have received more similar proposals which confirm that I'm getting older. Some of the men were younger than me but they were unemployed. A mother of one of them could dare to say to me shamelessly; " I don’t mind you being older than my son but you have to keep working to provide money." I got a lot of other humiliating proposals which declared that I have started my expiry period, in the eyes of Arabic societies. It seems that sitting in the front of the train wasn't my only mistake. But also being in a place that ignores my career success, academic education and my independence. Being in a place insists on classifying me as a wife based on my skin color, height and age.
**In Arabic, it's called the 72 Munich operation.
I'm not a spinster
A friend told me about a special discount on train tickets across German cities during the winter of 2016 and invited me to visit her in Munich. All I knew about Munich was the 1972 massacre**, its racism towards Arabs, and the Nazi camp that was there. When I got on the train, I found out that all the people looked rich. I could smell their luxurious perfumes while their faces were hidden behind their expensive cell phones. I felt I was in the wrong place as my ticket was for economy class. I didn't want to leave, it was a good experience to feel rich for a while. However, my experience didn't last long as the waitress came to tell me to return to the back of the train where the economy class ticket holders were supposed to be.
I moved there where the poor people like me were. I found a lot of the travelers were standing as there were not enough seats.
I sat on the floor beside a power plug to charge my phone and I accessed the internet. I ordered a coffee with milk and checked my Facebook page where I found a message from my university professor in Gaza. He asked how I was and what I was doing in Germany. I told him I was doing training in Deir Spiegel and that next year I would travel to UK for a scholarship. He then asked me directly if I had married. I replied that I was still single. He immediately told me that he had a good friend who wanted to get married and was looking for a good girl like me. Without waiting for my answer, he sent his photo via messenger. It was a big shock to find out that the prospective groom was in his sixties, a widower and had children. This was an obvious statement that I had officially started to be considered a spinster.
I was told before that I would not be able to marry a single young man once I had reached my thirties. That neither annoyed me nor threatened my dream of becoming a wife and a mother one day. But words turned into actions when I received a marriage proposal from a widower in his sixties. I felt humiliated and cried my eyes out amidst the German crowd. I didn't want to stop crying, crying was all I wanted to do then. I didn't cry because I was worried about my marital future. I cried because while I saw myself as a successful, strong independent woman, the society only looked at my age. For them, being older meant that I didn't fit into the perfect bride classification. It was maybe due to the wrinkles which had started to appear under my eyes or due to my decreasing possibilities of childbearing. I don't really know their reason but all I knew was that I wasn't as good as a girl in the beginning of her twenties.
Many statistics are given about spinsterhood every year and many comparisons are made between the percentages of Arabic countries. All the news websites talk about unmarried women while turning a blind eye to unmarried men. Strangely enough, statistics don't clarify if spinsterhood is related to the girl's own decision of not getting married or it's just an unfair classification attributed to every single woman regardless of her personal conditions.
I'm from Gaza strip where I was always told; "catch your opportunities, all the men have died in wars."
Why does being unmarried have to be linked with a title? Why do I have to be single in my twenties and a spinster once I reach my thirties? I can't find an answer. This is not the only issue that underestimates women and makes them like products that have an expiry date. A lot of marriage proposals depend on the girl's skin color, height, weight. As well as that, the girl's dowry goes up depending on her physical appearance and virginity. So if previously married, her opportunities shrink and she is also called a spinster.
For me, that was the first marriage proposal but it wasn't the last. Today after two years, I have received more similar proposals which confirm that I'm getting older. Some of the men were younger than me but they were unemployed. A mother of one of them could dare to say to me shamelessly; " I don’t mind you being older than my son but you have to keep working to provide money." I got a lot of other humiliating proposals which declared that I have started my expiry period, in the eyes of Arabic societies. It seems that sitting in the front of the train wasn't my only mistake. But also being in a place that ignores my career success, academic education and my independence. Being in a place insists on classifying me as a wife based on my skin color, height and age.
**In Arabic, it's called the 72 Munich operation.
Comments
Post a Comment