The Guest Of Shiek Essay

The Guest of Shiek by Elizabeth Warnock Frenea follows a woman named Basima Qattan Bezirgan or known as BJ is a true story about a woman in Iraq in the 1950s. Culturally the women who are called Sheiks have been looked down by man because of their culture. As Bob is a social anthropologist, BJ had no idea how much culture shock it would be and how difficult it would be to become a normal woman in this new culture. As Gender is a theme in this book BJ had to deal with difficult situations, and could not do what she did in the Western culture. BJ had to change and adapt to the culture into their women’s rights. the book explored how did BJ’s attitudes change throughout the book, how did the woman react to BJ, do the woman have less freedom

BJ wanted to stay as a western civilization girl; she did not want to leave her husband and wanted to go on his two-year adventure. BJ believed that she should survive without being involved in the culture of the village, but she was wrong. The culture is about having men above women. So when BJ showed up to El Nahra, the town it will be living in for the next two years had to wear an abayah, a piece of clothing that is black and covers the entire body of the woman . She did not want to wear this whatsoever. She even went outside into the public not wearing it. This is where the culture shock begins, she was being looked at not as a regular citizen but as a white Westerner tourist, and people were actually being discussed that this person was there, and not only it was there but it was a woman. BJ wanted to not feel this culture shock anymore and was forced to wear the abayah she desperately did not want to wear. BJ needed help; the sheiks invited her to lunch. The Sheiks we 're giving her advice and were showing her how to live in this culture as a woman. one even said, “A women`s jewelry is her own insurance against disaster, and the community

In the book, you can clearly see this. For example, BJ never had to wear a piece of clothing every time she had to leave the house which is an abayah. In Western culture all you had to wear its just normal clothes, for both men and women, but in the village of Iraq, you have to wear abayah if you’re a female. There are even some worse freedom Restrictions for women. One is that men and women have to eat separately in public, what 's the reason behind that? Why can 't women and men eat in public together? In the western world, it doesn 't matter who you are. You eat with a man or woman, people don’t care, their equals. Power woman even has some authority in this culture is the house they live in. The women control the house; if something goes wrong they told the men to make sure this is fixed. The woman also has power for making sure food is ready to go. The woman gets the food, cut the food, and make the food for the household. This is the only thing that they can control, and even this is not really a freedom. Her freedom is almost a chore for BJ. Staying in the house, making sure everything is clean and food on the table is a shame. In the western culture, woman can at least get a job to support the family you have. Another freedom restriction is that woman can’t go to the market.