Page 217 - Culture Technology Communication

200 Deborah Wheeler

social given, young women are careful about how they behave, con-
scious of their heritage and culture, and how outspokenness may be
interpreted by potential suitors. One result is that in college courses
at Kuwait University where I occasionally guest lectured, women are
highly unlikely to speak in class, even though they usually end up
with better grades, which means that their silence is not about lack
of understanding. I was told many times during my research in
Kuwait that the main difference between Western women and
Kuwaiti women is that Kuwaiti women, even so-called liberated ones,
would be unlikely to act or speak in a way disapproved of by their
husbands and male relatives, whereas women in the West were free
to act and to speak as they pleased. Thus, although gender neutrality
provided by some transactions in cyberspace enables some men and
women to learn about each others’ lives, these cyber-liberations re-
main constrained by history and local culture on the ground.

Interlude: Power and Voice in Kuwait

Badriya’s narrative also reminds us of the power constraints upon
people’s voices in general. If one is not a person with wasta (an Ara-
bic term for “connections”), then one is not protected from the poten-
tial harms of speaking out. Women tend automatically to have less
wasta than men. Even those who are from prominent families are
very careful about what they say. Throughout my research in
Kuwait, women would utter, “Don’t quote me on this,” “Off the
record of course. . . .” Most women who were cautious about being
quoted had some story to tell which revealed why they were con-
cerned. One woman, who has a Ph.D. and comes from one of the
leading families in Kuwait, explained that a man she knew spoke
out against an Islamic member of parliament, and as a punishment
lost his summer teaching opportunity. Thus, she notes, “We need to
be careful.”
Another woman, also a Ph.D., noted that she once read an in-
terview conducted by The Observer with two Kuwaiti women study-
ing in London. The interview touched on sensitive issues such as
virginity, women’s honor, marriage, and women’s rights. My friend
was impressed, and scared, by these two women’s boldness. She had
read the published interview in The Observer while she was study-
ing abroad. While talking with a friend some years later on the issue
of women’s voices, my friend recounted her amazement at these two
women’s boldness in The Observer interview. Her friend said, “Yeah,