The Unspoken

Tag: honour

  • Our Middle Name Was Never Ours

    Black and white photo focusing on a woman and a child from afar.

    Our middle name isn’t a name.
    It’s a chain.
    A line of men, our father, his father, and the one before him,
    stitched into our identity like a family tree with no branches for women.

    In much of the Arab world, we don’t inherit our mothers’ names.
    Not their first. Not their last. Not even a letter of them.
    We carry our father’s name as our middle, and his father’s as our last.
    A lineage of men.
    Unbroken. Unquestioned. Unfair.

    Growing up, we never thought to ask why.
    It was just how things were.
    When someone read our name out loud, we nodded.
    Even when it felt foreign to us,
    not just in pronunciation, but in ownership.

    Because no one ever said our mothers’ names in public.
    Not at school. Not at church. Not at family gatherings.
    It was private. Sometimes even shameful,
    as if protecting her meant erasing her.

    And yet, when our names were spoken,
    we felt the absence of her.
    The silence where she should’ve been.

    Some assume this naming system is religious.
    But it’s not.
    It’s not just Islamic. Not just Christian.
    It’s cultural.
    A regional tradition upheld across faiths,
    woven deep into our systems, stories, and expectations.
    A patriarchy disguised as respect.

    A system that traces a woman’s identity through the men in her life,
    first her father, then her husband, maybe her son.
    A system that says:
    You belong to him. Then to him. And never fully to yourself.

    Yes, the West has its own problems.
    Women still taking their husband’s names by default.
    Pressure to erase your identity for love.
    But at least the conversation exists.
    At least some people question it.

    In many Arab households, this naming system is sacred.
    To challenge it is to challenge tradition,
    which often feels like challenging loyalty.
    Family. Faith. God.

    But what if asking these questions isn’t betrayal,
    but healing?

    What if honoring our mothers doesn’t dishonor our fathers?
    What if lineage doesn’t have to be one-sided to be strong?
    What if we want to carry our mothers’ names too,
    not in secret, but in full voice?

    They raised us.
    They stayed up through our fevers.
    They taught us how to be soft and brave in the same breath.
    They held our fears when we didn’t have words.

    And yet, when our names are written on paper,
    they disappear.

    Maybe we’re not just asking to say their names out loud.
    Maybe we’re asking to write them into the record,
    onto birth certificates, identity cards, passports.
    Not as an exception, but as a right.

    Maybe we’re ready to question not just tradition,
    but the systems that keep it unquestioned.

    Because this isn’t just about memory,
    it’s about visibility.
    Dignity.
    Change.

  • Behind the Veil: Freedom and Control

    أَعْطِنِي حُرِّيَّتِي أطلق يَدَيَّ

    We, Arab women, are told that certain coverings, whether draped over our heads, wrapped around our bodies, or stitched silently into our thoughts, are our protection, our honour, our virtue. We’re taught they are “the best way,” the path of respect, faith, and dignity. But often, that “choice” was never ours. It was handed down like an heirloom no one dares to refuse, from fathers, brothers, grandfathers — and in many households, mothers became the keepers of these rules, expected to guard and enforce them.

    Growing up in the Middle East, I noticed that some Arabs equate ‘openness’ with staying out late, drinking alcohol, or flaunting luxury, the iPhones, the cars, the botox. Freedom, they suggest, is measured by visibility and display. But in my observation, freedom is not in these symbols. Behind all these signs of “openness,” many women remain caged, tethered by invisible strings to boundaries we didn’t choose, boundaries that shape every step we take.

    The headscarf is only one kind of veil. Others are harder to see: the rules whispered in our homes, the limits we feel in our bones, the judgment that trails us even when no one is watching. Whether we remove the cloth or keep it on, the weight of expectation clings to us.

    True openness is not the hour we leave the house or the brand of shoes we wear. It is the ability to decide for ourselves, to move, speak, dress, and live without being pulled back to a cage we never built. It is the courage to interrogate every rule, every expectation, every inherited “must” and “cannot.”

    The hardest truth? Some boundaries in the Middle East were created by men, enforced by tradition, and passed down through the very women who were once bound by them, mothers, aunts, grandmothers, who believe they are protecting us. Protection becomes control when obedience is the price.

    Breaking free is not just about what we take off. It is about what we unlearn. It is a rebellion of thought, a claiming of our own voices, a quiet revolution in the mind. It is naming the cage, loosening the strings, and knowing, with unshakable certainty, that our lives, our bodies, our choices, and our voices are ours alone.

    And when we speak this aloud, when we lift not just the veil on our heads, but the veil on our minds, the walls begin to crack. And in that first breath of air, we understand freedom not as society defines it, but as we feel it deep in our own skin.

  • Stuck in the Shadows of Our Fathers


    The Invisible Control Still Shaping Women’s Lives in the Arab World

    Some of us were born into the so-called 1%.
    Raised in the capitals of our countries.
    Surrounded by art, education, liberal pockets of “freedom.”
    We like to think we’re modern.
    That we’ve outgrown the old rules.

    But ever stop to ask:
    How free are we, really, as women in the Middle East?

    Ever catch yourself thinking twice before sitting in a car with a man?
    Ever feel that subtle shame when you see another woman doing it and think:

    “Mmm, that doesn’t look… clean”?

    That’s not just your judgment talking.
    That’s the generational virus, passed down from fathers, cousins, even ourselves even if we like to believe we’re not infected.

    We are.

    We grew up with governments run by men, with a handful of women tossed in for show, “quota women” who often couldn’t (or wouldn’t) fight for our rights.
    And when a woman does get elected?
    She’s usually expected to be modest, religious, “presentable.”
    Not tattooed. Not loud. Not free.

    We say we’re modern.
    But we’re still living in the shadows of men born in the 1950s, raised in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s
    men whose rules were never about justice, only about control.

    In their world, if a woman was seen out late,
    she wasn’t working late.
    She wasn’t running errands.
    She wasn’t with friends.

    No, she was doing something dirty.

    If she smoked, she wasn’t casual.
    She was cheap.

    If she had a drink?
    She must be asking to be used.
    Not wife material.

    These weren’t fringe ideas.
    They were the standard.

    And the worst part?
    That mentality never really died.
    It just evolved.
    Wrapped itself in softer language.
    Became “suggestions,” “concerns,” “warnings.”

    It’s no longer:

    “You’ll ruin the family name.”

    Now it’s:

    “Just be careful — you know how people talk.”

    And they do talk.
    Let’s not pretend otherwise.

    You could grow up in the most educated, well-traveled, “open-minded” family
    but don’t tell me you don’t have at least one relative who still says:

    • “Don’t bring a guy over what will the neighbours think?”
    • “She’s in a car with a man? That’s not appropriate.”
    • “Be careful about your reputation, you don’t want to be that girl.”

    A woman’s worth is still measured by how little she’s seen.
    How quiet she is. How covered she stays. How well she hides.

    Meanwhile?
    Men flirt.
    Men cheat.
    Men catcall.
    Men slide into DMs and get celebrated for “having game.”

    He’s not seen as impure.
    He’s just figuring things out.
    He makes mistakes.
    She is one.

    We’ve built a system where a man’s actions are his own
    but a woman’s actions belong to everyone else.

    Her body is a community project.
    Her choices reflect her father’s pride.
    Her voice threatens her brother’s ego.
    Her independence offends her mother’s sense of reputation.

    And when a man crosses a line
    when he harasses, assaults, or takes advantage
    we still blame the woman.

    Because:

    • “She shouldn’t have been out that late.”
    • “What was she wearing?”
    • “She gave him the wrong idea.”

    But we never ask:
    Why did the man feel entitled to cross the line in the first place?
    Why aren’t men taught to carry the burden of their own actions?
    Why is honour only ever dumped on women’s shoulders — and never theirs?

    The answer is ugly.
    Because in our societies, a man is always just a man.
    But a woman?

    She’s a reputation.
    A symbol.
    A risk.
    A warning.

    And we’ve punished her, generation after generation — for simply existing.

    It’s time we stop calling this “culture.”
    It’s control.

    And it’s time we name it for what it is.