Pioneering Canada's Armed Forces
Women are amazing achievers. Some women, that is, who mobilize their resources and firm up their resolve to attain whatever it is they aspire to. Women working as general practitioners in the field of public health, yet they raise a family and manage somehow to juggle all the demands on their time. It comes with a cost, but it also has its rewards, obviously, or women would not struggle to achieve both professional careers and a family life.
Some women have to surmount incredible obstacles to achieve what they have aspired toward. An enduring will helps, as does self-confidence and a sense of capable willingness to complicate one's life. Occasionally a news story will highlight the career trajectory of an individual for the purpose of demonstrating the kinds of obstacles faced by people and the manner in which they have managed to reach their goals, obstacles notwithstanding.
One such instance was that of Lt.-Commander Wafa Dabbagh, represented as the first member of the Canadian military to wear a hijab. She has a fifteen-year experience with Canada's naval reserves. She is an observant Muslim of Palestinian descent, born in Egypt, raised in Kuwait, and who migrated to Canada at age 28, in 1990, with her family. At age 15 she reached a personal decision - though no one in her family wore traditional Muslim garb - to wear a hijab.
She did so, it would seem, to deflect attention from her physical characteristics as a woman. Finding privacy and the comfort of a kind of anonymity in concealing her hair, along with a modest form of dress that would not reveal her female contours. She evidently does not find that mode of dress constricting, and she is devoted to it. She has never married, which may reveal a streak of independence, or conversely, a discomfort with the traditional female role in society; her original one, and her current one.
She is an educated woman having attained a bachelor's degree in Kuwait, and an MBA from the United States. Her fluency in Arabic has been useful in her naval career trajectory, as when she was posted to the Middle East and her translation services represented a valuable resource. She is full of praise for the manner in which she was welcomed into Canada's armed services and the opportunities she found there that satisfied her needs. And she remains as yet the only Muslim woman in the services who wears a hijab.
She now works full time with the military, training naval cadets and latterly co-ordinating the Ottawa-based Future Security Analysis Directorate. She accepts that she is a role model for other Muslim women: "I want the Muslim community to know the door is open for them in the Forces. My experience has been 95% positive, and if I can do it, they can do it", she claims.
"And I want other Canadians to know that there are people serving Canada who are not white with blond hair and blue eyes. We are all working together, white, black, Asian, Arab, aboriginal - and I'm one small face among them." In fact, most Canadians are well aware, one would imagine, of the diversity in the make-up of Armed Forces personnel, since immigrants constitute a large and growing percentage of the Canadian population.
One reads of this woman's story with mixed feelings. Admiration for her resolute determination in mastering, at an already-relatively-mature age, training more suited to younger, more malleable minds and bodies. Her good-natured personality is what appealed to those who worked with her. She is obviously a conscientious and hard worker, and she has met with open minds, accepting her choice, to wear a hijab.
And found no difficulty in acceptance among her peers and her commanding officers that she required the opportunity to pray five times daily. Where her own family was puzzled by her decision as a teen to encumber herself with a hijab, her choice of headgear was accepted by the Forces.
It is a conundrum, however, that an independent and resourceful woman deliberately presents as both a pioneer and a traditionalist.
Some women have to surmount incredible obstacles to achieve what they have aspired toward. An enduring will helps, as does self-confidence and a sense of capable willingness to complicate one's life. Occasionally a news story will highlight the career trajectory of an individual for the purpose of demonstrating the kinds of obstacles faced by people and the manner in which they have managed to reach their goals, obstacles notwithstanding.
One such instance was that of Lt.-Commander Wafa Dabbagh, represented as the first member of the Canadian military to wear a hijab. She has a fifteen-year experience with Canada's naval reserves. She is an observant Muslim of Palestinian descent, born in Egypt, raised in Kuwait, and who migrated to Canada at age 28, in 1990, with her family. At age 15 she reached a personal decision - though no one in her family wore traditional Muslim garb - to wear a hijab.
She did so, it would seem, to deflect attention from her physical characteristics as a woman. Finding privacy and the comfort of a kind of anonymity in concealing her hair, along with a modest form of dress that would not reveal her female contours. She evidently does not find that mode of dress constricting, and she is devoted to it. She has never married, which may reveal a streak of independence, or conversely, a discomfort with the traditional female role in society; her original one, and her current one.
She is an educated woman having attained a bachelor's degree in Kuwait, and an MBA from the United States. Her fluency in Arabic has been useful in her naval career trajectory, as when she was posted to the Middle East and her translation services represented a valuable resource. She is full of praise for the manner in which she was welcomed into Canada's armed services and the opportunities she found there that satisfied her needs. And she remains as yet the only Muslim woman in the services who wears a hijab.
She now works full time with the military, training naval cadets and latterly co-ordinating the Ottawa-based Future Security Analysis Directorate. She accepts that she is a role model for other Muslim women: "I want the Muslim community to know the door is open for them in the Forces. My experience has been 95% positive, and if I can do it, they can do it", she claims.
"And I want other Canadians to know that there are people serving Canada who are not white with blond hair and blue eyes. We are all working together, white, black, Asian, Arab, aboriginal - and I'm one small face among them." In fact, most Canadians are well aware, one would imagine, of the diversity in the make-up of Armed Forces personnel, since immigrants constitute a large and growing percentage of the Canadian population.
One reads of this woman's story with mixed feelings. Admiration for her resolute determination in mastering, at an already-relatively-mature age, training more suited to younger, more malleable minds and bodies. Her good-natured personality is what appealed to those who worked with her. She is obviously a conscientious and hard worker, and she has met with open minds, accepting her choice, to wear a hijab.
And found no difficulty in acceptance among her peers and her commanding officers that she required the opportunity to pray five times daily. Where her own family was puzzled by her decision as a teen to encumber herself with a hijab, her choice of headgear was accepted by the Forces.
It is a conundrum, however, that an independent and resourceful woman deliberately presents as both a pioneer and a traditionalist.
Labels: Canada, Companions, culture, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 7:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home