"I'm leaving the Middle East now, closing up years spent covering the fighting and fallout that have swept the region since Sept. 11. Of all the strange, scary and joyful experiences of the past years, my time covering Saudi Arabia remains among the most jarring....The rules are different here. The same U.S. government that heightened public outrage against the Taliban by decrying the mistreatment of Afghan women prizes the oil-slicked Saudi friendship and even offers wan praise for Saudi elections in which women are banned from voting. All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines. U.S.-owned hotels don't let women check in without a letter from a company vouching for her ability to pay; women checking into hotels alone have long been regarded as prostitutes." Yes, Megan, but the challenge is to identify signs and symbols of gender oppression and misogyny when they are less blatant and less explicit. In other words, it is easier to be a feminist in Saudi Arabia, but more difficult--although they should not be--in Sweden and Denmark (the US is somewhere in between). And regarding women checking into hotels alone as "prostitutes": what about women who play college sports who are called prostitutes on the air, in a show that is frequented by top US politicians? Sometimes, I wonder: when American foreign correspondents spend time writing from foreign lands, do they develop an idealized image of the country they left behind? This week alone, I heard complaints from a Canadian friend in New York City and an American friend here in Modesto about sexual harassment on the streets. Do we blame that on Arab men too?
PS I should say as Megan leaves the Middle East to cover another region, that her reports from Lebanon were always consistently balanced and informative. To her credit, she did not suffer from Hummus fever during the "Cedar Revolution." I wish her the best.