I don’t think that western women that visit here really understand the level of frustration I have achieved with dealing with the men here. Western women can talk to both the men and the women, but I can assure you that they have very different conversations with the men than I do. While women can talk about their brothers, husbands, and fathers, the men are totally silent about their female relatives. I don’t get to meet them, and if I go to their house, I don’t even get to see them. The implicit assumption that they are totally off limits to all other males makes my skin crawl. Somehow their honor would be compromised if I even saw them. What does that say about what they think of me? BTW, this isn’t necessarily an Islam thing, it’s a Yemeni thing.
Anyway, this stuff has been building in me for a long time, and I’m tired of being all PC about it, I hate it. I hate how they treat “their” women like possessions and I hate the fact that I can’t even be trusted to see or talk to them. Whatever, I’m done with this place…