Better yet, women; why don’t you like your own kind?

Three very alarming things I came across that made me furious with the media: An Arabic song, an Egyptian sitcom and an American blog about a woman making 300 sandwiches so her man proposes to her.

I am a sappy romantic, I am cheesy and anyone who knows me made quite a few jokes about how I missed my then-boyfriend when he went on a trip with his friends and had his picture as my phone’s wallpaper. Yes, I am that sort of dedicated partner, I love sharing everything with my husband and love to make him happy.

Having said all that, this comes from a place of strength and love, it comes from the fact that I know he loves and misses me equally. I make sweet gestures because I appreciate him and want him happy and would gladly make him 300 sandwiches if it makes him happy because I know he would do the same for me.

It’s not about the act, it’s about three things: Why I am doing this act (to make him happy or to trick him into marrying me because myself isn’t enough for him to decide to spend the rest of his life with), whether this is reciprocated (I am all for getting a haircut he likes as long as he’ll shave his beard for me) and, and this is crucial, whether this change or action is against my personality or beliefs. If I hate red and he likes me in it but red makes me feel bad about my looks I won’t wear it to please him and upset myself. I would gladly, however, wear brown if I feel neutral about it to please him.

But I never made any gestures, acts of appreciations and definitely not 300 sandwiches because wouldn’t be with me otherwise and wouldn’t pop the ring. I was reading the much-shared “I’m 124 sandwiches away from an engagement ring” about a woman who decided to woo her husband through sandwiches because he told her, and I quote, “you’re 300 sandwiches away from an engagement ring.”

I was shocked; but very happy.

I was shocked because this woman truly felt that she needed to make 300 sandwiches to win her man over into marrying her; forget romance, forget giving and forget sweet gestures; this is outraging. Again, I would gladly make 3,000 sandwiches for my  husband, but not because I am doing this to get him to marry me — because something is definitely off with our relationship if the decision whether he wants to spend his life with the woman who’s clearly ready to spend hers with him lays on her sandwich-making abilities.

The author wrote another article in response to the internet fury her blog generated, “It’s a blog, not a ‘wich hunt,’” explaining how her blog was misinterpreted. I am not one to judge their relationship, maybe it was, in deed, all a joke. But what sort of message is she putting out there? That women need to work hard to trap men who aren’t too sure about committing into marrying them?

Why does she have to want this marriage and feel the need to work hard to merit it while he feels like it’s a prize he should bestow upon her whenever he sees fit? Shouldn’t they both want to spend their lives together? Why is marriage often perceived as the final trophy a man gives a women after she does all the tricks to trap him into holy matrimony? I find it not only disturbing, but deeply humiliating.

Now I have to say though that this article made me very happy too,  yes, I am quite thrilled with it: It was a huge relief to me knowing that Western media too sends all sorts of screwed messages and it isn’t just our own sexist culture.

I am sure you’ve come across the talented Donia Samir Ghanem’s new song, Wahda Tanya (A Different Person). I like Donia a lot, and I truly admire her many talents and the effort she puts into her career. But this is why, coming from her, this song was a disappointment. She is a symbol of young, successful Egyptian ladies who made their own career and proved her merit despite her family’s connection in the business. So why would she agree to lend her voice to such a masochistic song that down right degrades women?

The song is about a woman in love who is, no, not changing to please her boyfriend, but rather losing her personality altogether because apparently he doesn’t like how she dresses, her personality or her friends. The song literally says “I wear what he likes, do everything he wants, see things in his eyes and follow his instructions to the dot because he now controls all my life. I talk to no men but him and he also chooses all my girlfriends because he likes none of them.” Now this is not a song that actually criticizes this or makes you feel she’s upset about changing all her life, friends, personality and fashion sense for the man who now controls all her life, no, she actually says that “oddly, I am happy doing all that.”

Slight difference between compromising to please your lover and downright changing everything you are; why is he even with her if he feels the need to change each and every little thing about her?

Now this song pales in comparison to a sitcom aired in Ramadan 2012; Al Zoga Al Rab’a (The Fourth Wife), now the fact that the show was about how four wives are collaborating forces to keep their shared husband and how they were each fighting to keep him for the night, this wasn’t the worst bit about it. It wasn’t that they all seemed quite happy to share a man, much like many other series, and dress up to the nines each night waiting for him to come home and choose which wife to sleep with, or the fact that their lives had nothing else but this to revolve around. No, it was one scene, one supposedly comic scene, that despaired me: A scene of the husband coming home to beat three of his wife and them laughing about it and running around like it’s supposed to be funny. He was beating them with a baton and they were running around and kissing his hand asking for forgiveness and it was all portrayed in a comic light, not the tragic context it’s supposed to be shown in.

What kind of messages is the media sending to young ladies who aren’t yet aware of how relationship dynamics are supposed to be like?

Are they supposed to grow up thinking they should do everything to trap the man into marrying her because he will not want to, that they should change personalities to please that man and that it’s perfectly fine for him to beat her up and instead of fleeing the relationship asking for his forgiveness? In return, should she simply expect him to give her a ring and stay married to her to make it all okay?