Alone in Amman
When the worst happens, an American woman renews her view of the world and redefines her place in it.
By Katherine Lonsdorf
2008 Student Diplomat Essay Competition Winner
I distinctly remember the moment before the first punch. He was looking down on me, his fist clenched, his eyes angry.
The impact is black. The moment after flooded with emotion—anger, confusion, acceptance, detachment, strength—all in one rush of adrenaline. The rest of the punches all blend together. I don’t remember pain or blood or the feeling of my face breaking in three separate places. The touching, grabbing, clawing, choking, screaming: clouded and surreal.
What’s still vivid is my reaction. It’s the first time I actively recognized my rights, my complex role of being a woman, and the sacred ownership of my body. I took it all for granted before that day. I’ve thought about it every day since.
I went abroad to change my views. On my 16th day in Amman, Jordan, my perspective of myself, of social roles, of the world, changed forever.
American women in the Middle East seem to find themselves trapped in a stereotype: promiscuous, inviting, and naïve. I was not an exception. The stares, shouts, and touches all confirmed my assumed place in society as an object first, a person second. It was a clear and frustrating feeling among nearly every American woman I came across there. Being an American woman in the Middle East seemed to mean two overarching things: free sex and the possibility of a green card.
The stereotype of foreign women in Jordan sunk in slowly. The first weeks were too overwhelmingly exotic to observe many of the cultural and social norms. Then began the realization that with every blatant stare, rude comment, provoking grab, or lack of acknowledgement, we American women were different. This wasn’t America, and we were not considered equal to men. We weren’t even the same as Arab women. Eventually, we realized we wore a completely different label all our own.
My initiation, however, was early. It was fast. It was painful. And there was nothing subtle about it. In the second week of my time abroad, a taxi driver abducted me on my way home from the grocery store. I didn’t know much Arabic, and I was painfully foreign, obviously American. I realized I wasn’t headed home when it was much too late.
I ended up on a dirt road on the outskirts of Amman, no houses or people in sight. In one swift motion the cab doors locked shut, the driver hurdled over the front seat to pin me down in back, and my clothes were torn. I managed one call on my cell phone before he threw it to the front seat, and we were alone.
It probably lasted all of 10 minutes; I blank on most of the action. I just remember an intense will to live that I had never felt before. Most clearly, I remember his look of astonishment when he realized I would not submit.
Lost in translation between the Paris Hilton images and the Britney Spears music videos was my personal empowerment, my individuality, my self-reliance. I was not the easy American woman, the promiscuous American woman, the inviting American woman; I was the enabled, proud, unashamed American woman.
Thanks to him, I am also now a much less naïve American woman.
He stopped, and I jumped from the cab, grabbed my groceries, demanded my phone. I looked him straight in the eye as he slammed his door and barreled away.
A group of young Jordanian men happened to drive by soon after, finding me bloody, in shock, and crying in the middle of the road. They offered me the first in a series of second looks at a culture I almost dismissed. They called the police, bought me water and ice, stayed with me for an hour to wait for help. In broken English, they managed to string together one sentence: “No worry, it will be okay.”
I spent the next two weeks between hospitals, police stations, and Arabic classes. I was contacted by the American Embassy, the U.N., the royal family. Everywhere I went, with my battered face and known story, it seemed someone wanted to apologize, excuse, sympathize.
An old Bedouin man took one look at me, shook his head, and said sadly, “There are good men, and there are bad. In the whole world. This man, he was bad. But we, we are not all bad. You understand?”
A woman, her face covered and her head down, came up to my translator as I waited at the police station for a medical exam. She said something in Arabic. My translator turned to me and said flatly, “She wants to know if your husband is beating you, too.”
Everyone stared, and it was a much different stare than before. The women stared with understanding and pity. The men stared with a mix of shame and anger. I realized that I was in no way the only person struggling in my story. While my pain may have been more recent, my situation more extreme, I was only a piece of a continuous, daily strain on society—man or woman, American or Arab.
Going back to America never really crossed my mind; in fact, three days after the attack, I petitioned my home school to let me stay abroad the full year instead of the one semester I had planned. I knew a full year would be the only way to really learn the language and to understand the culture and the people. I needed to allow the attack to become the beginning to a full and positive experience, instead of the definition.
I consider this one of the best decisions I have ever made. In Egypt, I rode Arabian horses by the pyramids and learned about the poverty of the Bedouins there despite the wealth of tourists around them. In Qatar, I spoke Arabic with a man in the markets of Doha for hours about his desire for peace. Every new month, every new city, every new person I met both simplified and complicated my view of the world and my place in it.
My feelings about being a woman—an American woman—morphed too. The catcalls, the grabs, the assumed inferiority never stopped. I learned to keep my eyes down, to smile less, to speak only Arabic and only when addressed. As best as I could with my blonde hair and white skin, I assimilated.
It was at that point that I began to realize that my stereotypes and assumptions about the average Jordanian woman were just as misplaced as my attacker’s thoughts of me. It took time, but I allowed myself to take another look. What I found were some of the strongest women I have ever met, women who had realized their rights and empowerment in a society where it was not an easy find. From filmmakers fighting harassment to journalists reporting honor killings and health care professionals teaching sexual education to female college students aspiring to study law in America, Jordanian women proved to me that social norms and stereotypes are different than definitions.
That’s not to say that walking down the average street was not a challenge and meeting the gaze of the average man was suddenly acceptable; coming back to America was a giant and much needed breath of fresh air. Things that had been taboo suddenly surrounded me: short skirts, male friends, individuality. What’s more, people seemed to accept, and even expect, me to be an independent woman with a job, a voice, and my own life plan. I was suddenly handed every social freedom for which women in Jordan fight every day.
Since I’ve been back in the United States, I’ve tried to spread an accurate, positive view of the Middle East to anyone who will listen. I am hoping to help dispel the misconceptions many Americans have about Arab life and viewpoints, beginning to bridge understanding from both sides, maybe someday softening those stereotypes that hurt me and others as well.
Being an American woman means more to me now than it ever has before. I recognize my life in America is easier, freer, and more complete than some people will ever have abroad. But even though America allows me this independence, Jordan granted me an awareness and appreciation of my rights that I may have never gained otherwise. I probably won’t ever live in Jordan again, but I would visit tomorrow if I could. Jordan became part of my identity and it will always be there. Once a place is home, it’s home.
Katherine Lonsdorf, a senior at Occidental College, studies Diplomacy and World Affairs, with a Middle East focus. After returning from abroad in June 2008, she helped start a group at Occidental for anyone interested in exploring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After graduation in May 2009, Lonsdorf hopes to land a job that pays her to write and travel. She’d particularly love to spend time accurately reporting on the Palestinian people.