Prospects of entitlement

Sara Abou Bakr finds speaking to women harder and harder

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Illustration by Bahgory

A refined 50-year-old-woman who works for an international organisation is still addressed as Anesa (Miss) Somaya. Salma, a colleague of hers, says it is "kind of embarrassing at this age". And Nesreen, a graduate student in on the discussion, agrees: "why must the title of a woman reflect her marital status?" Married or not, men are all ustaz (mister), after all. Until the early 20th century, the originally Turkish term hanim was a common enough, neutral term of respect; now it is applied only to female diplomats. Naila Hamdy, PhD and lecturer of journalism and mass communication department at the American University in Cairo (AUC) , misses the days when hanim was more widespread: "what's sad is that one can't ask people to travel back in time." Rather, she insists, new modes of communication should be devised; and titles would be an integral part of the process. For some women, the issue is resolved, with their professions providing a quick answer: physicians, engineers, scholars. Such titles, according to Hamdy, convey "a sense of achievement and pride". Still, with the number of unmarried women over 30 on the rise, the right way to address an Egyptian woman in formal contexts is an increasingly vexed issue.

According to Heba Metwally, an AUC Masters student working on the image of unmarried women in film, "in 1996, the National Council for Women announced that 25 per cent of Egyptian women are unmarried. I am still looking for more recent statistics." It is too early in her thesis to make a conclusive pronouncement, she says, but the general view of unmarried women is rather humiliating -- a great pity in the light of the media's powerful role in defining social roles -- since "the stereotype of the unmarried woman has barely changed" since the first half of the 20th century. Anes, which means spinster or old maid, is now almost never used, whereas anesa meaning 'miss', has become an inscrutable lable. In formal Arabic, anes is used for both genders, especially in the case of a woman over 30. "A lot of people agree," says Metwally, "that the term should be wiped out of the dictionary -- why a woman should be routinely humiliated for remaining unmarried after 30 is beyond me." Psychologist Fikri Abaza, one such interviewee, told Metwally that, if a divorcee is made to feel like a failure, the stigma of a spinster, an anes, is even worse. Likewise the word agouz, the most common newspaper term for a woman over 50: Karima says she doesn't feel like an old woman, which is what the word means, and "with the life expectancy of Egyptians at 80", Hamdy declaims, "it just doesn't add up". According to Karima, it lacks tact and common sense: "apparently I have to feel that way, by order of my society." An American woman, Emma, testifies that, back home, "very few people would call me ma'am. It would sound weird as everyone is on first- name terms there. But we sometimes use 'Ms' to address an elderly unmarried woman." Still, if first names make life easier, in formal contexts in Egypt it is perceived as impertinent to use the first name, especially with someone older

For her part, Samia Waheed, a 45-year-old housewife, points out that even those words derived from religious terminology -- hagga, for example -- are so widely misused they have shed every last vestige of respectability; hagga has become rather a term of address for any woman over 40, regardless even of religion: "I am not veiled, but the grocer, the market traders, even beggars and salesmen address me as hagga ; it doesn't matter what religion I am." Ustaza, a term traditionally reserved for female lawyers and journalists -- which has already spread a little -- seems to be the only available answer; it is an exact equivalent to ustaz and in this sense would perform a function very like that of Ms. Younger women are far more comfortable with it. As Nesreen says, "it's so much easier, people should use it more." Yet there are men who, unhappy with a title that does not denote a woman's marital status, are resisting the transition to ustaza. "Many like their wives to be referred to as Mrs So and so," says Nermine. "They take pride in it." To some, titles may not merit all that attention, but to others, like the aforementioned Somaya, being called anesa, for example, is a constant reminder of a particular social stigma. One has to be tactful, says Nermine, "not like the guy who kept calling me anesa while I was visibly pregnant. I was about to point to my stomach in the end."