I've sat through church services or conferences or workplaces or public arenas where the
only women who are visible are the ones who are extremely thin, who are white, who are blonde, who are American, who are fashionably dressed and professionally done - up, who are able - bodied, who are bright without being intimidating, who are pretty without being sexy, who are unthreatening to our
status quo of appropriate, who are ticking every box for what our culture tells us is
acceptable about womanhood.
A little march to and rally outside where he was staying, in support of the action being taken to preserve the eight indigenous ethnic groups, the small but very ancient and entrenched Jewish community, the Gulf's
only synagogue and Jewish cemetery, the black community that is part of the East African diaspora, the fifth of the population that is non-Muslim, the half of that fifth which is Christian, the strictly optional
status of the women's headscarf, the Sunni third of Bahraini Muslims, the requirement that all legislation be approved by both Houses of Parliament, the election of the Lower House by universal suffrage, the regular appointment of women to the Upper House to make up for their dearth in the elected Lower House, the presence in the Upper House of a Jewish man and a Christian woman (the latter the first woman ever to chair a Parliament in the Arab world), the present position of a Jewish woman as Ambassador to the United States, the very close ties to Britain, and the fact that all of this is perfectly
acceptable even to Salafi Members of Parliament.