My Voice

It was my first trip to Dubai and I was to be a panelist at a women’s event sponsored by Merrill Lynch in partnership with the Arab International Women’s Forum (AIWF). Having grown up in India, I had many Muslim friends, some of whom came from orthodox families with mothers and aunts who lived behind the veil. Twenty-plus years of living in the United States conditions one to contrast the rest of the world against the yardstick of life in the Western world. This visit to Dubai challenged me to reconsider my perceptions.

Dubai is a fascinating mix of Arab and Muslim tradition and Las Vegas-like Western materialism. I was desperately trying to adjust my body thermostat to the humidity and the 115-degree temperature, when it was time to meet the members of the AIWF and “sell” them on the opportunities at Merrill Lynch and within the financial services sector.

Recently I was at a small grocery store waiting to pay, when one woman approached another while standing in line. She introduced herself as the mother of the "new girl" in school and proceeded to ask why the girls were so clannish. This woman explained that her daughter did well academically, but was suffering socially. The girls were unfriendly, they treated her daughter as if she were a competitor. The woman in line was icy, apparently she hadn't witnessed any such behavior among her daughter and her daughter's friends. In fact, she became indignant at the remarks of the first woman. The "new mother" of the "new girl" seemed crestfallen—had she naively assumed that she had an ally in another mother? To the contrary, what she had was proof of how we, as mothers, teach our daughters to treat other females, that a newcomer churns up the need to guard our turf.