Issues Related to Gender, Religion, and Social Roles

It will be helpful to consider issues of gender and religion that directly impact dancers and their place in society.  

Traditionally and historically, Egyptian dance has served a variety of social functions as ritual,²³ entertainment, celebration, social dance, healing and courtship. Depending on the context, dancing is considered more or less shameful. Spontaneous unpaid performances, such as in segregated wedding parties, are seen as appropriate expressions of joy on a happy occasion.²⁴ Professional dancers performing in the commercialised setting of a nightclub are accorded the highest disapprobation.²⁵

To better understand the stigma associated with professional dancers, it is important to gain insight into Islamic cultural attitudes. Back in 1902, Stanley Lane-Poole, professor of Arabic, condemned Islamic attitudes towards women:

The Egyptian ladies . . . suffer from the low opinion which all Mohammedans entertain of the fair sex. The unalterable iniquity of womankind is an incontrovertible fact among the men of the East; it is a part of their religion. Did not the blessed Prophet say, ‘I stood at the gate of Paradise, and lo! most of its inhabitants were the poor: and I stood at the gates of Hell, and lo! most of its inhabitants were women?’ . . . Following in the steps of this pious Father, the Muslims have always treated women as an inferior order of beings, necessary indeed, and ornamental, but certainly not entitled to respect or deference. Hence they rarely educate their daughters; hence they seek in their wives beauty and docility, and treat them as pretty toys, either to be played with and broken and cast away, or as useful links in the social economy, good to bear children and order a household.²⁶

      The following information is a summary on women’s social roles and obligations according to Islamic Arabic culture, drawn from a number of researchers. Although Arabic women may enjoy sex for pleasure, a woman’s body is not her own but belongs to her family, and the honour of the family rests in her body.²⁷ Women must be married so that their sexuality can be controlled and thus not pose a threat to men or society. A wife’s primary duty is to provide sex for husband. Her next most important role is to produce and raise children. Women should be obedient and loyal to their fathers and husbands. Women must know how to please their husbands in order to ensure their husband’s attention and support for themselves and to prevent their husband’s being tempted by other women. Men are warned against the seductive power of women, which distracts men from their more important relationship with God. Single women in public are thus seen as capable of creating fitna, social chaos resulting from sexual disorder.

Islamic doctrine promotes an understanding of “body” that sees women’s bodies as only sexual, in contrast to men’s bodies which are primarily productive and political and incapable of inspiring desire. Consequently, a woman “working in the male public space is generally perceived as an erotic invasion.”²⁸ Because women’s bodies are sexual in nature and capable of driving men to do things against the social good (for example tipping a dancer with money that should be spent to feed the family), a woman’s body is by definition shameful. Furthermore, “female entertainers differ from ‘decent’ women because they publicly use their bodies instead of hiding their shame as much as possible. They publicly employ the power of their bodies. . .[to] tempt male customers in public.”²⁹ It follows then that for a woman to perform in public is shameful (whether singing or dancing), as she openly displays her body and uses her seductive powers for material gain. According to this rationale, professional female performers are considered “fallen women,” functionally indistinguishable from prostitutes.³⁰ The stigma applied to working dancers thus has several aspects. A woman “on-the-loose” (i.e. not controlled or protected by a husband, father or brother)—not honourably occupied with the domestic duties of wife and mother—is seen as a threat to the order of society and an intrusion on the male public sphere.

By Marilee Nugent