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No. 380641
>>380577how do you guys convince your parents to let you study abroad? I qualify for a scholarship to study at my dream university abroad but my parents wouldn't allow me and i tried to reason with them but its impossible, they wouldnt even let me step outside the house without me being leeshed to them like a dog and im now an adult just because im a woman yet my brother basically moved out of our house at like 15 he does whatever he wants and gets whatever he wants and my parents spoil him rotten. is there a way to reason with someone who cant be reasoned with?
my mom is mainly the one opposing it because she thinks its taboo for a girl to travel or go outside by her self and it would cause the familys reputation to be ruined
No. 380652
I wonder how long it will take until this thread goes to shit.
>>380641What country are you from? You can give her a list of women from your country that studied abroad. Talk with other family members and see if they could help. How old are you? You sound like you’re talking about going to undergrad, tell your teachers and maybe set up a meeting with them.
Might sound a bit mean but if it’s just your mum opposing you then just ignore her, if your dad has no issues then go study.
No. 380752
>>380645It's not possible because my father has to sign a form for the scholarship and hes refusing because my mom told him no even tho he himself is ok with it.
i was able to reason with my father because he can be reasoned with but not my mother
>>380652UAE, i'm 18 years old. and i dont have any family members to speak to because they live far away and if i try to message them they would ignore me.
Have you done this before? because I mainly want to hear from women with strict middle eastern parents on how they dealt with this.
I don't really have friends(from a similar background at) or relatives I could speak to
No. 380877
>>380759As for my safety, I have not chosen to study in the USA or France because I have heard that these are unsafe places for MENA women, the city I will be in has a very low crime rate.
However, Isolating myself from the world will not protect me and will only make me more vulnerable and unsafe when my parents are not around to shelter me because you know, my parents are not immortal.
My mom is concerned that I will somehow become "unmarriagable" because if a girl goes outside or travels by herself, then she will somehow become tainted and less "pure" because it means that flies or packs of wolves (men) have gotten to her. She has very flawd logic and is stuck in a puritanical mindset which means that my logical arguments wont have an effect on her.
also wth that is also terrifying. Were they under the influence of drugs or alcohol? I am terrified of that happening, so I am going to make sure not to trust any men. I am also going to try to make sure that I have all-female dorms to minimize the risk of that happening.
I genuinely do not know how to deal with men or interact with them because I have been to all-girls schools my whole life and have not even interacted with male relatives. The only guys I can talk to comfortably are effeminate gay men online. I am also a bit comfortable talking to a guy when he thinks I am a guy too. For some reason, when I am talking to a man online, he is chill until he finds out that I am not male, then his behavior or attitude changes, even when I am talking about normal stuff like a video game or what type of music I like. I do not know why their attitude changes so drastically, but I hate it; it is like they do not see me the same anymore. Why is it such a big deal that I do not have a penis?
Thank you so much for these good suggestions. The problem is that my parents are technologically illiterate lmao… It would be a really difficult task to teach them these things. One still uses a Nokia dumbphone. The last suggestion is also good, but the issue is that I am scared of befriending religious Muslim girls because I am not really religious myself. When a past Muslim friend found that out, they ended up turning against me, which is why I struggle with making friends with people from the same background as me because people of such background take religion more seriously and I have this fear that they will be upset or offended and turn against me when they find out. I have a difficult time interacting with people or making friends, but I hope that when I am at university away from home, I will not only get a better education but also learn how to interact with people and develop my social skills because I was not allowed to hang out with anyone outside of school, and we had very short lunch breaks so a couple of minutes of eating lunch with someone did not feel like socialization to me. When I moved schools, I could not befriend anyone at my new school. I am extremely socially stunted…
No. 381476
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are there any same sex attracted MENA nonnies here ? i've spoken to some anons about it before but since this is a dedicated thread i thought i'd reopen the discussion.
>where are you from and what's your experience like ?
i'm from morocco and although i'm not open about it and not even that GNC (except in middle school) i still got bullied relentlessly in school for being gay from primary school to the time i finished highschool. i was an internet addicted "otaku" outcast, but it was probably my malehating i never grew out of kek, but otherwise i never expressed attraction to other girls and was careful not to by the time i knew what being gay was and the consequences i could face if anybody caught me admitting to it in any way. copying things (never interpersonal) i would see in the media to create elaborate lies and continue the larp on my facebook just to save face and it didn't work kek. i guess there are just some things people can smell off of you before you know to express it yourself. maybe i was a terrible liar and the insincerity was blinding kek.
>are you out to anyone ?
right now i'm out to three girls i trust and i don't think i could have any more people knowing that about me. sometimes i wish i could just scream it from the rooftops and just be out and free, but unfortunately that will never be possible. it's a really lonely and isolating experience, but i've come to accept that this is just the way that it is. i really feel like i'm always lying to my parents and family, especially in moments where they're nice to and affectionate towards me, and i live in intense fear of them finding out. feelsbad even trying to know people because the default is just homophobia and yet despite accepting that it still hurts to know that you're subhuman to them if they knew the truth. sometimes i fantasize about having the money to live abroad where i can be free and away from people that know me, then being disowned wouldn't matter.
>how did you find out that you were SSA/lesbian ?
i think my homosexuality is something i always felt, despite being born to a religious family i still never felt any type of way about my preference for girls growing up, i was just indifferent, i didn't think about it, i just knew in the back of my head that i did. i did typical things like making my girl toys kiss and eventually fuck, rewatch music videos of female popstars or clips of celebrities i really liked until i felt like i had to pee, pretend to be a guy in online games to get gfs etc by the time i was a tween i just told myself that maybe when i'll reach puberty i will finally start seeing what's so attractive about moids and when i reached that stage i never did kek. i tried to lie to myself and repress my homosexuality by denying myself any sexuality at all, but i just couldn't and started being honest with myself because it's not something that can just go away if you ignore it, and i haven't looked back since. i never felt actual "comphet" or any real pressure to be heterosexual, i just didn't want people to know that i wasn't.
>how do you deal with religion ?
i guess i still have faith in god's existence but idk about the other things anymore. it's weird. i only practice cultural customs like ramadan, or only ramadan kek and the other dietary restrictions.
>have you been in any relationships before and how was that like ?
i'm a permavirgin autist and i'm too nervous to download a dating app of any kind in fear of being outed. there have been anons from the same region as me who have told me that they've had success on tinder and facebook but i can't bring myself to put anything about me out there…
>is there some sort of community where you live ?
not that i know of but honestly i'm so sheltered and basically live as a troglodyte so there might be one i am not aware of. each of my friends in different universities tell me that they have SSA friends that are borderline out, i've met bisexuals girls before too but we were teenagers at the time so i don't know if it was just an act of adolescent edgelord rebellion or legitimate same sex attraction, but i can't know for sure.
No. 381583
>>381476 I sometimes wonder If I don't count as straight because I somehow only get attracted to close friends or some one I feel I have a connection with, so like even if there was a male supermodel in the room, I wouldnt be attracted to them, i would just admire how pretty or handsome they are for a moment but i wouldnt feel anything towards them. and also im turned off by masculinity in some way?? like the only guys id find physically attractive are femboys or skinny guys with long hair and high pitched voices and no facial hair and a generaly soft appearance. the moment a guy grows a beard, cuts his hair or gets muscular im immediately turned off by him and repulsed.
i might have caught feelings for close female friends but i didnt think of them in a sexual way, but im also generally repulsed by sex though. like i genuinely find it disgusting but i wonder if im this way because i went to all female schools my whole life and had no contact with guys and not even any male relatives. the only ones i interacted with i spoke to them online.
No. 381602
>>381476I'm originally from a north african country too, but I have managed to leave not long ago. I lived through the exact same thing (and still kinda am) back when I lived there. I once gathered the courage to download tinder and got a warning that said my location was dangerous to homosexuals so I noped out kek.
Ironically, what complicates it in my case is that I have genuinely good parents but they are religious. They would probably never try to hurt me but it would be a shock big enough to physically hurt them. (One of them has heart issues related to shock). I decided leaving was the only option, I only have to keep up the facade when I call or visit, for now. It'll get harder if I'm dating a woman and they visit me, but I'd rather not think about that for now, since I'm single.
The hardest part by far is the isolation, which was bad enough in my home country, but in my rush to leave I didn't think about how lonely being an immigrant is, let alone a lesbian one. I'm different from people who grew up here, I'm different because I'm gay, and even if I try reaching out to the "community", it's full of gender crap which is the same fanatical ideological BS I lived through with islam just with a rainbow coat. Sometimes it feels likes there's no place for us in the world.
Sorry for the depressing blog post, I am hopeful that things will get better one day. I also hope you manage to find a way to leave! The student route is the easiest, everyone I know left this way so you should look into it. You can even "cheat" by borrowing money to get the visa, then get a student job here. No need to have the full sum they ask
No. 381609
>>381602Sometimes I feel lucky that I feel no connection towards my parents because they're terrible people. Coming out to parents that you actually love and care about is way harder than coming out to parents that are
abusive and you feel no connection with because you're concerned with upsetting them. I thought about getting married to a girl while abroad and sending my mom pics of me kissing my wife at my wedding because she always told me "no man will ever want you".
No. 382067
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Being Arab and lesbian is a special kind of hell. Queer MENA people are braver than any US marine.
No. 382361
>>382292Idk if there are any Lebanese nonnies here but the social pressure to conform is insane. I met a really nice Lebanese girl and she told me her mum more or less bullied her into getting a nose job, which according to her is normal.
>>382067I want to find normie Arab gay people. Every gay person I know is basically westernised, I might as well be talking to a tumblr blogger.
Closest thing was one girl who ever since she started dating an enbie has become a TIF herself.
>>382327That's one thing I like about dating apps in MENA, women mostly use it with the intention of looking for friends which obviously drives men insane when they match with women. Also some of them are so innocent they set it to just women, I'll never forget when my lesbian friend handed me her phone and had me swiping literally most are just straight women looking for friends you just can't hate it.
No. 382485
>>382439Pakistan is probably because of poverty.
In the UAE women do get plastic surgery, idk if it's on the same level as Lebanon.
Probably has to do with how European obsessed people are.
No. 383193
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Not a single place MENA women can exist online without getting ridiculous amounts of hate and racebaiting, huh? Honestly wish there was some sort of discord server or lc alternative with race verification to prevent this kind of shit.
As an arab woman I have nowhere that isn't infested with westernized she/theys who will tone police you if you talk about your experiences. I was foolish to think lolcow was any better.
No. 383345
>>383288Honestly yeah I'm actually surprised.
Not a lot of self-hating nonnies or people losing it because you dared to have the opinion of an average MENA woman or LC anon.
Tbh it's a lot of wishful thinking coming to LC hoping to find a somewhat mentally stable and sane community for MENA women.
What kind of thread or community were you hoping for?
>>383311>TurkeyThat first part now makes a lot of sense
No. 383804
>>382485in the UAE it depends if its in dubai (prostitute concentration camp) or other Emirates. in Other emirates its less rampant but I still had 2 girls in my 12th grade class with lip fillers and nose jobs and its kinda sad, also I'm pale and a blond arab and was seen as a 10/10 before my hair darkened even tho I'm not that pretty in other countries and there were girls with dark
hair and darker features who looked prettier than me but people paid less attention to them just because they didnt look white. its pretty dumb. I hate how eurocentric beauty standards are poisoning our minds.
No. 383806
>>382527id rather be dead than be married to some goblin my mom chose at this point.
Im 19 and im living like this and i cant imagine living like this till 24 im contemplating just ending it. how do u manage?
No. 383823
>>383806Ayrt; I just hope I'll be able to get my life to a point one day where I'll be able to move away, and cope by reading the stories on r/ForeverAloneWomen or some of the threads here of people who managed to get into healthy relationships with loving partners after being single their whole lives. And I try to remember that for everyone like me who is sad about being lonely, there are just as many women sad because they're in a
toxic relationship. And there's the usual things about mindfulness and being grateful for the little things. As corny as it is, romanticising things like a vibrant sunset or how pretty my earrings look after I put them on does make me feel better, even if only for five minutes. Plus I have more time to myself to learn new hobbies and skills that I might not have if I were putting time and energy into a relationship
No. 383890
>>381602holy shit
nonnie we are living the same life rn. i just moved to france, while i feel more attached to european culture than my north african culture (bc my parents are more open minded and wanted to teach me my neighbors cultures), i still feel alone as an immigrant lesbian. and i had the same experience in my homeland country with tinder, i still tried to match some girls there but most of them were also scared or were gendie(which was ???? so upsetting??) but now in France i see gendies everywhere, or bihets. i still cant know how lesbian joy feels.
No. 402716
How do you guys deal with the misogyny from your dad/mom? Being expected to do more housework, and being overall blamed and shamed for existing?
The other time, my mom was saying, about an annoying boss "if she'sa woman, it's because she's on her periods, if it's a guy, it's because his wife pissed him off"
It was a light conversation, I jokingly replied "that's misogynistic, why is it always the woman's fault?"
And she replied "well it is Eve who ate the forbidden fruit"
And it echoed in me. My whole childhood and to this day, I feel like I've been blamed and shamed for things I did much more than my brother. If my brother broke something or misbehaved at school, it was quickly forgotten, whereas I keep hearing about mistakes I did when I was 12 to this day.
It's like, as a woman, my mistakes define me ; but him as a man, his mistakes are just accidents.
I feel like this misogyny is exacerbated in MENA families.
No. 402845
>>384244How did you deal with getting bullied into cosmetic surgery? My parents did the same by ganging up on me over summer break and asking me 24/7 why I didn't want the surgery for months on end until I gave in. I know giving in after a few months was retarded but I was kind of broken down from when they bullied me into getting moles lasered off a bunch of times before and all the verbal and emotional abuse.
I thought my family was reasonably progressive deep down despite all the misogyny they threw at me and my mom, but that event where my mom joined in and even took it as an opportunity to get the same procedure kind of broke me for a few years. I don't know if I still want them in my life anymore and I ghost them a lot (I'm fortunate enough to be living away from them with my brother).
No. 423296
>>380877NTA but I've lived in France as MENA for many years and people were really not treating me any differently from anyone else. I'm not there anymore because I'm doing my PhD but it's not so bad. I'm not a hijabi though so YMMV. Most MENA immigrants I know did fine provided that they're not obviously religious (hijabs, abayas or henna beards &c), if anything I felt more at home in France than other European countries. I'm still mad at how I was treated as a tourist in Austria.
As for men I usually ignore them since I'm not interested in dating and it is going ok. So far they have not been a problem. I have a few male friends also from my home country and we talk about video games and anime sometimes but we're not that close. It will be okay I think, it doesn't hurt to try. If you try to find a community of young secular people from your country it's a good way of making friends too but don't start introducing yourself before you leave because word might get around to your town and family.
My parents are crazy strict and religious so I don't talk to them, if I told them where I was I'm scared they'd send someone to bring me home. So if yours aren't likely to change their opinion I'd advise you the same. Do what you want to do cause it's your life, but there's no point telling them. Just do it.
No. 423478
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No. 424794
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>>424783Probably hammams. There's a really nice one that looks like picrel in the neighbourhood my family is from and it's just the most relaxing place. It feels so good to use the sauna and special soap and body mask, and get a really deep exfoliation then maybe get an argan and ghassoul massage afterwards before relaxing with peppermint tea on the chaise loungues they have. I can make traditional food and bring clothes back with me but hammams are the one thing I really miss in Europe.
No. 424846
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>>424783i like that most people are genuinely helpful here even though you'd never be able to tell with some because of how "aggressive" they come off (and really are sometimes i won't lie). idk if it's a city difference though i've felt the same anywhere i've gone (aside from ofc touristic spots kek). i just love the warm attitude of my country and am so used to it idk if i could handle coldness. also, i'm mixed race but look fully from my other raised, i was born and raised here, and although people have been and continue to be racist to me i've honestly never been made to really feel like an outsider contrary to my other half. like so much so that it took me until i was 14 to realize that i really was different to the average person here, because people quickly move on and treat me just the same as anybody else. i literally forget i'm not "fully" from here. can't say the same whatsoever for my other country kek. i'm honestly grateful that i grew up here and not there and especially because both are muslim countries but at least the one i was raised in is less psycho conservative. i also think the climate/weather in my country is so perfect. idk how you european nonnies do it but i feel like dying when there's no sun for more than a week. like if i'm seeing more overcast skies than sun i would get so insanely depressed, which i have actually experienced when i lived somewhere else for a couple months. tbf i'm lucky to live in a coastal city though so it never gets inhumanely hot. i also love cheap as fuck farmer's markets/souks everywhere and i love to thrift here. and let's not forget about the food, picrel is my favorite of all time. if i could, i would eat this everyday, and i kinda did when i went to uni kek ( honorary mentions: tajine dl7em wlbr9o9 / hrira / and ofc kskso, but only when my mom makes it kek )
i really love my country but i wish islam had never been taught here, that's why i want to leave in spite of loving it so much. as much as there are things to enjoy, i can't have a fulfilling life in this country given that i am a homosexual. i wish so badly for this retarded curse of a religion to be fade away but sadly i don't think i will live to see that day. spoilered for party pooping. i will say tho as a zoomer i have been seeing more and more people outwardly denouncing religion. could be biased though No. 424892
Going to ask a wookish question (I swear I'm not one of those mentally ill women who think collecting crystals makes them witches), but is anyone interested in pre-Islamic deities or religious practices?
For Morocco, a lot of it hasn't been archived due to Islam and is quite taboo, but there are some remnants of pagan folk practices, like wearing amulets with symbols that are believed to increase luck or offer protection (the khamsa and nazar eye are the most famous but there are several, mostly motifs taken from nature). And there's also beliefs that materials used in jewelry have certain powers, like coral is meant to increase fertility and silver is meant to cure rheumatism.
There are also some djinns who sound similar to pagan goddesses in other cultures, like Aisha Qandisha (
https://occult-world.com/aisha-qandisha/), Lalla Malika (
https://occult-world.com/lalla-malika/), and Lalla Mira (
https://occult-world.com/lalla-mira/). I like to think that Lalla Mira is the reason Moroccans are so fond of the hammam.
On Ashura there are also some folksy rituals practiced. Lighting bonfires is a common celebration on Ashura and some people use the fire for sorcery, like burning talismans. Some women also get their fortunes divined as it's believed to be a good time for practicing witchcraft. I've also heard of people making shrines to their ancestors on Ashura because of a belief that the veil between this world and the next world is at its thinnest on this date.
It can be hard to find information on it, but it's really interesting to discover what Moroccan spiritual beliefs before Islam was like. Especially learning about goddess figures who were worshipped in their own rights.
No. 425161
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>>424892>khamsa and nazar eye weren't these things brought over by jews from the middle east? they aren't exactly local.
>Lalla Mira>Lalla Malikanever heard of these two. interesting.
>Lighting bonfires is a common celebration on Ashuranever knew about this either. all I know is that kids buy toys that day.
the only tradition I know that seems pre-islamic is Boujloud. I love that it causes so much butthurt each year.
No. 425335
>>425333And I’m fucking SICK of being scrodingers “
PoC.”Things that would be considered racist to say are suddenly ok when it comes to us. We’re never white enough to enjoy any of the privileges but we don’t get the affirmative action/protection other “colored” people get either. We’re stuck in limbo where people can be openly racist against us but we’re still yucky thirdies.
On an unrelated note, it pisses me off when porkskins call themselves Caucasian. Real Caucasians are mostly muslim and don’t look like
that. So cringe when they appropriate that term
No. 426439
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Bamye: like it or hate it? (there's a correct answer btw)
No. 426827
>>425333Maybe the Germans were justified in their racism against the Turks
Sick man of Europe, did nothing but stagnate a whole ass region for 600 years
No. 426950
>>426440I don’t care what g*rmans think
>>426712 I fucking hate it when our men turn the gene pool into a swamp by breeding with poor slavs. The children are always so mentally disturbed too, especially after the marriage ends when Natasha doesn’t get her pocket money. Its basically the white male/filipina prostitute couple dynamic with the colors switched. So much for “love doesn’t know borders!” Anyway, don’t bother identifying as a Turk even if you think you look like one because you will always be seen as a foreigner and perhaps a hooker.