Fadfada

All my life I knew that there were two genders; male and female, apparently however I was totally wrong and ignorant. According to digg.com there are 16 types of genders that you have to choose from when creating your profile. 1- Guy 2- Girl 3- Dude 4- Lady 5- Fellow 6- Bird (Birdy Egg from Nest Ville – Oak land, signing up to Digg) 7- Chap 8- Grrrl 9- Gentleman 10- Damsel 11- Beau 12- Belle 13- Male 14- Female 15- Transgender 16- None of the above (Aliens who want to Digg) See how ignorant I was =)

I have watched lately Jad Choueiri’s video Funky Arab , I read the comments on Youtube, face book and listen to people at the office arguing about it. To be honest when I first saw the video I was totally shocked. One of my colleagues said "I understand your shock but at least he is out there trying to do something to change how people, especially in the west, perceive Arab." As an Arab, I for once am totally against labeling Arab as angry bearded men or women covered in black, but the question here is do I want to be labeled in the way Jad reflected in his video?! I honestly don’t think that what Jad reflected has anything to do with how the Arab or funky Arab looks. I didn’t know that being funky meant wearing bikini, botox injecting my face, smoking and dancing around like a B***h, or wearing sunglasses at night and chains all around my neck. Is this really the kind of image I want people to perceive Arab as! Some of the comments on Youtube accused those against

I have recently watched this amazing video The Happy Muslims Who Confuse You ,by syndicated columnist Mona Eltahway , talking about Muslims stereotypes and how they are seen by media. The image you get about Muslims especially in the West is angry bearded men and women covered in black that are almost invisible in every way. Watching the video I realized that I too am judged based upon this stereotype image. I am a moderate Muslim woman, I wear the hijab; I am not covered in black, but I have a scarf on my head and I wear ordinary skirts, pants and dresses with long sleeves and I work in PR. I never thought that being the way I am would confuse people till one day when I was having a cup of coffee with a journalist and he said “I don’t think you are wearing the hijab because you are convinced of it.” When I asked why would he think that he answered “because you are so open minded!!” The answer really shocked me! Does being a Muslim woman in a hijab means I should be close minde