One of the largest adjustments that I’ve had to make here in Senegal has been in the manner of interaction with others in a variety of contexts. Different food and styles of houses and dress are easy to adjust to with time – having to constantly second-guess how you relate to others even as continue to fumble with a second language. Some interactions have become much easier. I know to find and greet all my family members when I re-enter the house, I know how to politely tell the talibes that I can’t give money or food today, and I know how to behave around the bowl at meal times.
And yet, there is a one genre of interactions that continues to be confusing and very frustrating, and that is the myriad of interactions between genders. Never before have I appreciated the freedom I have in the US as a woman the same way I do now.
In many conversations with the other girls in my program, we have realized that all of us suffer the same sensation of truly feeling the weight of the patriarchal standards of Senegalese society. That weight expresses itself as many things, from having to cover more of your shoulders and legs depending which part of the country you’re in to know that no matter what men on the side of the road shout at you, no one will ever take them to task or even object except you.
I don’t presume to speak for any other countries, but it’s clear that the influence of Islam definitely changed the expectations of women here in Senegal. I’ve heard about how in many ways the women wielded all the influence back when Senegal wasn’t yet a country, just a region populated by many tribe-nations. In modern day, women still rule the house and their rules go, even if it seems outwardly that men are calling the shots. But if they actually leave the house (which sometimes doesn’t happen very often), they lose a lot of power. Young men, especially those who are unemployed, hang out all over the city, and are not always shy about giving their opinions of girls walking past them. Old men spend days on street corners making ataaya and have been known to be just as a bad as the young men, offering to ‘allow’ a girl to be their 3rd or 4th wife.
My experience in the rural village of Thiankone Bougel, close to the eastern border with Mauritania, was an extreme example of this type of interaction. Dakar is very westernized in many ways, or at least more slack about some standards for women. In a town with only 1000 people yet 3 mosques, I had to cover up much more than normal – legs to mid-calf, shoulders completely, and even the top of my head. And yet even thus covered and barely speaking any of the local language, Pulaar, I received no less than 2 marriage proposals per day from men of all ages and even from some mothers on behalf of their sons. When I was able to be less covered in our family compound, any visiting men were very forward, to the point where I had to create a fictional husband back in the US to be able to converse normally.
What all this has really driven home for me is the effect of US representation abroad and how it really affects individual experiences. As a white woman, I need to cover up more than many foreign women of color to be treated with the same respect because of all the stereotypes from US movies of scantily-clad women who are portrayed as easily sexually available. Similar representation has given many people here the idea that all Americans are very rich and that poverty doesn’t exist. Many members of my program who come from mixed racial backgrounds constantly face disbelief that they can be American and not white, that their families can be Korean or Indian and yet they can be American – because the faces that are broadcast from America are all-too-often white, with no hint towards the true diversity in our population.
The US has many issues with our interactions with other countries, but this – our unrepresentative media representation – is something that we should fix for both the international and domestic goals. If we want to be able to have better dialogues with other countries, we need to be more conscious of what our media, from movies to news to even radio, says about us and about our culture. If I continuously find myself feeling like I should say I’m Canadian instead of American just to mitigate the assumptions being made about me, that shows more than anything that America needs to improve our own representation at home and abroad.