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New Technologies, Old Culture 197

the time. Here in Kuwait, many people use other people’s ac-
counts to surf the Net. They break into places where they’re
not authorized to go. I hack. The Internet cafes are full of
users. Have you ever been? I’ll take you there and teach you
to use IRC. In Kuwait, if you give people freedom they will
misuse it. This is why the Internet is dangerous. Kuwait
channel 1 on IRC is all about sex. I prefer Kuwait channel 2
instead. I meet interesting people there. One man who is
Kuwaiti but is studying now in London has been pursuing
me on IRC. He sent me his picture as an uploaded file
through IRC. I got it and I started laughing. He looks just
like my father. I could never marry him. I want someone
very handsome. I told him this and he said to give him a sec-
ond chance because the picture was not really a good one . . .
I have a friend who is getting married to someone she met on
the Internet. They only “chatted” for four months and now
they’re going to spend the rest of their lives together. I think
she is stupid. It’s possible to lie on the Internet. How does
she know that he is really as good as he says he is on-line.
One has to be careful. . . . One time I was “chatting” with an-
other engineer from Saudi Arabia. He kept asking are you a
man or a woman. Finally I answered, “I’m a woman, is this
important.” He said, “Yes, I refuse to talk to you.”

Su’ad’s narrative provides an image of a woman at ease with techni-
cal environments. Her words are representative of the many young
women at Kuwait University who are specializing in the sciences
and are serious about their advancement within Kuwaiti society.
Many young Kuwaiti women major in the sciences because their
chances of employment in the medical and scientific fields are high. 20
Like many of these young women, Su’ad wears a veil, but this seems
like an almost irrelevant detail. Many women veil because of the
anonymity it provides them in public places. Being veiled can enable
women to meet and speak with members of the opposite sex: this
would otherwise be difficult if everyone knew who they were. Su’ad
explains, when asked about veiling, that she is respective of her Is-
lamic values, yet she observes that she was raised in a liberal envi-
ronment by parents who were educated in the US. Thus she feels
comfortable in crossing strict gender lines on IRC and in real life.
For example, once when Su’ad took me to an Internet cafe, she said
that someone she met on IRC would be meeting us there. “A guy?” I