How people dress

When T and I first decided to move here and started telling people of our plans, we got a lot of the same questions over and over again. Many of the questions were related to dress. "Will you have to wear a burqa?" or "Will you have to veil?" were common questions I heard. Fair enough. My experience has been that your average American (including me) doesn't know a lot about Morocco (nor about Islam, which has a great influence here because 99% of the population is Muslim). Several people confessed to me that--completely automatically--they conjured up images of sandy deserts, people living in tents, and camels. Even after a great deal of research, I still had trouble imagining what it would be like here. And part of "what it's like" is related to how people dress, which is, of course, inextricably linked to culture, religion, and gender and social roles.

So I think when people asked whether I would have to veil, what they were really asking about was what life would be like for me as a woman here. Most people I talked to knew that Morocco is in Africa and that it is a Muslim country. Well, how are Africa and Islam represented in the U.S.? Africa is a place of desolation, AIDS, and starving children, right? And Islam! It seems that in the U.S. there are very few images of Islam that don't come from places of great extremism, like Saudi Arabia, or that are not related to terrorism and oppression of women.

Morocco is clearly nothing like that, and the way people dress provides some of the evidence.

Yes, many women here wear a hijab. I suspect that, the more rural the area, the more traditional the dress will be. I have seen many women with hair, arms, and legs covered with traditional-looking garb (still need to learn the names for all the variations). But many of the young women are putting an interesting spin on things, wearing a hijab with a tight-fitting long-sleeved top, leggings, and heels. On campus and in the marché, I have seen young women in what I would call very American-style tank tops, with bra straps showing. I saw quite a bit of cleavage on one young woman today. I have seen short sleeves, low tops, short skirts, tight pants. I have seen these clothes on students and University employees. I saw no inappropriate staring from men, nor have I heard cat calls or lewd comments. There are women of all ages wearing hijabs, and there are women not wearing them. The point is that it is a choice here, just as it is in most places. And I have seen no indication that Moroccan women who choose to dress modestly and/or wear a hijab have any expectation that others should do it.

Okay, guys, maybe you are wondering what you could wear here. I must confess that I have paid more attention to what women wear because that is more relevant to me. But with men, too, I have noticed a wide range of dress. I saw a man downtown wearing shorts and a t-shirt and have seen many men in jeans and t-shirts. It does seem, though, that a lot of men dress nicely, in suits or collared shirts with dress pants. Some men wear traditional Moroccan garb. Again, as with women, there is a great deal of variation.

We will go to Fes/Fez on Saturday, and it will be interesting to see how dress is different in the big city from in our little resort town.