According to “Sex ed, one Instragram post at a time” (2021), The New York Times’ reporters Mona El-Naggar and Sara Aridi reported that social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, or TikTok were used as enlightening sources to provide sexual education to Arab women by numerous activists who are aiming to support reproductive health, solve cultural sexual misbeliefs based on religious doctrine and patriarchal societies in the Arabic world. Arab women have been facing gender equality. Moreover, standardized sex education is nonexistent in schools, with 40 percent of the unintended birth rate in Arab countries (Guttmacher Institute, 2018 as cited in El-Nagger & Aridi, 2021) attributable to women and girls have been left wondering, uneducated, and ashamed of their bodies. Activists are trying to mitigate the issues with the internet. Nour Emam, 29, an Egyptian activist, a professional doula, who helps women giving birth, and a former DJ broadcasts her show, “motherbeing”, via Instagram and TikTok. Fatma Ibrahim, 32, the founder of “Sex Talk in Arabic” posts her content on Instagram and Facebook. Dr. Sandrine Atallah and Dr. Deemah Salem, physicians from Lebanon and the UAE broadcast their show through Youtube and Instagram. The array of such online platforms and their ability to reach out to Arab women throughout the region is changing Muslim cultures. It's a common ground to provide a safe space for women to understand anatomy and open women to knowledge considered as harmful. To accomplish the main goal, to change a common religious belief that women have to oblige their husbands’s, every sexual desire, where those who refuse their husbands “the angels curse”, activists try to renew the idea with consent. Another misconception that they try to break is that families value women’s virginity, although many conservatives said that the platforms provoke unashamed, unembarrassed acts from women such as having sex before marriage, or learning about sex, which are not appropriate manners. However, many advocates found that the contents boost women’s confidence, and they can overcome their fear by understanding their nature.
When I was young, I first saw Arab women walking on the street with black clothes covering their bodies from head to toe which scared me. When I grew up, I learned more about Middle East cultures where there are strong male dominated cultures. I felt pity for Arab females in some aspects. Fashion was the first thing that I wondered how they could enjoy wearing beautiful clothes or shoes when the culture controlled them. Another is sex issues. Even though Thailand is not as conservative as Middle East countries, we also have a conservative idea about sex.
ReplyDeleteWhen I became an adult, societies change quite a lot, we adopted American cultures, teens have explored sex experience with protection. Some liberal families teach their kids to have save sex. As I remembered when I was a teen, sex education was a time when we joked around each other in the class. We barely learned how to protect ourselves. Teachers did not teach us how to use condoms either. My classmate dropped out of high school before she finished her final year because she was pregnant with another classmate. I was frustrated that my mom had told me not to have a boyfriend before I finished university.
I grew up by learning about sex through the internet, media, and friends’ experiences. I felt that it was not the proper education that I could get. However, when I read this article I think Arab women are worse than me. They seem to have no choices to reach to the knowledge. Social media is a powerful way to reach out to those women, and it also provides a private space for them to talk, share, and discuss about their bodies. Today, the internet and social media help mitigate this problem because people can find out their solutions and decrease their worries with anonymous acts.
I think lack of sex education is a crucial issue that we have to cope with, whether in Thai or Arab. Poor sex knowledge should lead to a lot of problems, such as overpopulation, sexually transmitted diseases, poor living quality, and more serious issues when unprepared moms reproduce kids. Anyway, as far as I understand the Arab religions, they are extremely restrictive on women behavior due to their religious beliefs. It was going to be harder to change their beliefs, which might contrast with the religion.
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