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Mohamed. 60. Birthplace: Marrakech, Morocco. Currently: New York/Morocco. Muslim. Creating Jobs. Shop Owner.
What does the concept/word “feminism” mean to you? What does the concept of equality mean to you?
It all depends. I mean, feminism can mean a lot but if I look at it from a woman’s perspective, then I look at it like it’s all about women. On the other hand, when you say feminism we have male and female as a gender but I guess what we’re talking about here is feminism as a human right as opposed to just the idea of a female. I see it like; male or female, we’re all the same and we deserve the same treatment.
What do you think is the most pressing struggle for women today? What is the most crucial aspect in your eyes?
I think that women are trying to get equal treatment and equal rights and I think that’s been a struggle for quite some time. It’s still going on even though we see changes. I see changes and it’s a positive thing. I think that people now are more aware and there are more men aware of it as well. I think the issue has to be addressed and of course without women there would be no world. It has to be a serious thing to be taught and explained; if there weren’t women, there would be nobody here. Without women we wouldn’t be sitting here talking and they should be really highly regarded.
You work with women in Morocco for items your shop and advocate for them to find work. How did you come about helping them?
I grew up with my father and uncles in the business of buying and selling textiles from tribes all over Morocco. I learned dialects when I was young and traveled all over the place: from the old cities to the imperial cities to the mountains. Especially in recent years I’ve been doing a lot of mountains and working with women including groups of women in Sefrou – the city of the festival of cherries. They developed a group of women who do all handmade buttons, earrings, necklaces instead of making that stuff for the kaftan to sell it on its own and I think it’s an awesome idea. That’s one group I work with.
I work with a lot of women weavers, both in the high Atlas and middle Atlas. When I visited last, they were making wedding blankets and this is one of their pieces. They literally stopped making these and now they’re hard to find. Vintage ones tend to have stains so we’re trying to revive the production and bring that back instead of having to lose the skill or art. I don’t want that to go, if I can do anything to keep it going I would do it, especially for the women. When I travelled back there at one point these women didn’t have any work and they needed work. I had several meetings with them and thought there would be a way to give them employment and use their skills to make something so they can make a living. They were making as low as $0.50 a day according to the interview I had with them and now we’re making a lot of stuff. It’s not a big market yet, hopefully it will be soon but we’re happy that things are going well and they’re working.
I asked the last group of women I met with to show me what they could do, so they showed me pieces they made in the past and what they can make. This is a village I go to and I try to find out what skills they have; whether they can spin the wool, wash the wool or not. This group does not spin the wool, they only weave, so I have to go somewhere else to get the wool. Now we’ve been working over two years together and there are about twelve women. I’m asking them what they can do, what they can’t do, where we can find the wool, and we try to stay away from dyes because it gets complicated. I try to only work with natural wools so everything is easy – we have black, we have white and we have grey. We started with carpets, now we’re making blankets and other stuff as well. That’s in one region.
Then in the middle Atlas I have a few other areas where I work with these women who have certain skills whether they make a better carpet or a better textile or a better blanket and then I try to make it even better by encouraging them to use the best quality wool, weaving a good quality weave and paying them double or triple of what they used to get. These women were making $0.50 a day by the time they weave a piece, buy all the materials and travel back and forth to buy the material, then travel to sell it. They make so little that when we calculated it, everybody makes around fifty cents so I went ahead and gave them $6 each instead of the $0.50. I gave them ten times what they were making just to begin. That’s how we did it. And then we figured out a way for them to be comfortable because they can only work half a day (4 hours or so). They have to take care of their family and their kids all morning until the afternoon when they’ve fed the family lunch, then they start working and they work until 5 or 6 and that’s that.
Then I branched out to the high Atlas where they were making all this stuff in these colors and I thought; why not do something different? Instead of making six colors, why not stay with black and white and a couple of natural colors? We are doing it, we’ve done a great deal of weaving with these women and they’re amazing. They’re amazing and now we’re trying to develop different products so they can be used for shoes, boots, jackets, bags, belts, straps, so it’s not only a textile or a carpet. I’m trying to find ways to implement their product where there is demand, where there is a market for it. My main place of selling their work is right here in New York. What I’m trying to say is: why just make the same thing over and over again for all these years that you will have a hard time selling, when you can adapt it to something else or make something out of it that would be useful/functional? Because how many rugs can you sell? How many of the same rugs can people buy? Why not make something that would be used as either a bag, a scarf, a shoe, a boot, and that’s what we’re doing.
On a global scale, do you think it’s a struggle for women to find work?
On the one hand they do have enough work and sometimes they need to work only so they’re not bored. They’re not used to sitting around and they want to do something but I don’t think that’s the goal. The goal here is: through their work they will get somewhere, their voices will be heard, there will be attention, they’ll be acknowledged and that’s what we’re looking for. Via their art they will be popular. They will be heard. They will be given more attention and that’s the goal here I think. Anybody can go out there and work and earn money and that’s that. But on the other hand, somebody in the middle of nowhere, nobody knows about them but they are amazing artisans or artists and nobody really cares. People take advantage of them and take their stuff and sell it without even acknowledging where it comes from or who made it. I think it’s totally wrong and that it has to be addressed and that’s the most important issue; taking advantage of women.
That’s the struggle that we are trying to overcome and maybe get rid of, hopefully in the very near future. I think a lot of people are doing just that – they’re taking advantage of these artists and it’s really bad, awful and inhumane. I think it has to be changed and only by bringing their art to a world like the United States, and maybe to an educational level where people would know about them, write about them, visit them and know who they are, that it will change their lives and their status a great deal. It’s a group of women I help, they’re an association. So this group I’m talking about has roughly 100 women from several villages that are a few miles apart and they all weave and they’re all artists. Some are higher skilled than others, but they all mean the same thing and they all have the same goals in life: to have a better life, hospitals, a normal life with very good standards, to have enough income, healthcare, education for their kids and the family.
I run into this group called the “development and migration” group – it’s foreign people in Europe who migrated to Europe or came back to Morocco from these villages. They were tired and thought about studying something for themselves and the villagers so they created what they call “Migración et Développement”. So they went and put money together and created a home in the middle of the village so people will come and visit and see what’s going on. It benefits the locals by buying their products, exploring the village, eating their food, talking to them and exploring. Even for their kids who still live abroad, when they come home they see something created instead of just leaving these people as they are or getting worse; try to develop their way, try to educate them.
This group of people now based in Agadir, one of the last cities in south Morocco on the coast, they met with me a couple of times. They asked me my opinion and I told them that if we want to help these women, I think we should develop their product and what I meant be developing their product is change the look a little bit. I told them specifically if they can get me a skilled teacher of shoemaking, a skilled person with clothing, someone who’s a teacher at a center and a teacher of making accessories, I would like to apply the skills of these people to what these women are making so we can change their life a little bit. We can develop it better so they can make more money without having to work a lot. Instead of making a 6 by 3 foot piece they would make 2 by 1 foot piece and still make the same amount of money because we are going to make it into something useful and they will benefit from it. That’s the goal. The conversation is still going on and these people are looking for ways to do it. Hopefully we’re going to do it between now and February. That’s what’s in the works.
Is feminism a subject you think about? Have you ever read a book or seen a documentary about feminist issues?
Not necessarily. I come across things like that and yes, I think about it once in a while but in general I look at feminism as women should be looked at; normally, and not looked down upon. They shouldn’t be oppressed, they should be treated with respect. We all have sisters and mothers and they’re all respected and we should respect the rest just as our family because we’re all literally one and we all come from Adam and Eve. I don’t see why women should be less valuable than men. That’s how I feel.
Why do you identify as a feminist and how/when did you learn about it? What were you taught about women growing up?
As kids we grew up in a sort of segregation in schools. We were told not to come close to women and not to touch them. They were almost sacred because people were so protective of women and girls, especially as we were growing up to the point that we did not have girls and boys learn at the same school. We had segregation. There were boys by themselves and girls by themselves. It was literally forbidden to even touch them or talk to them. My family had a lot of girls and boys, I had two sisters. It was a mix and we had unions almost every Friday, it was just a family tradition that we all talk with everyone but at the same time you are watched constantly, especially from your neighbors, from your school. It was a very serious thing not to come near the girls.
How was life with your sisters?
Well my sisters and I were family, we had no problem, we lived together. The traditions and the religion were sort of a barrier in countries such as Morocco as we were growing up. It’s not an issue now, it’s totally different. You’ll see boys and girls working or hugging and kissing all over the place, it’s not an issue. But in the old days, yes, it was a shame to do that, you had to be hidden, you had to be very discreet about having a relationship with a girl – unless you want to marry her, you’re not supposed to be talking to her about anything. But of course in other areas, tribal areas, there were festivals that are still going on where guys go and meet girls and they get married or engaged on the spot. Like the marriage festival in Imilchil. It still exists and I think there’s a couple of those in Morocco. It was different but in general girls were sacred and you were not supposed to come close. You’re not supposed to start a relationship with a girl until you’re 16 or later.
Some people might be from a wealthy family and they have maids and girls so they have access to making a relationship at an early age – as early as 10, 11 or 12. But it all varies, it’s very hard to say. You see that as we were growing up. You see that women were suppressed, talked to like nothing, they’re beaten, they’re hurt, they’re kicked, they’re insulted. Those were the old days and people didn’t know any better and it’s totally against the religion, it’s totally against humanity but I think the people who did that to women were uneducated, they’re not aware in this life, they’re not connected to anything that is human and they themselves are not qualified human beings in a sense. That’s my own opinion because if you were to deal with a person, whether man or woman, you would treat them like yourself or better and that’s what we were taught and how we’re supposed to be treated. You should treat somebody just like you want to be treated, otherwise it doesn’t make any sense.
Is feminism empowering for men? If so, how? How does feminism differ for you?
Like I said, without women we wouldn’t exist. Women were created for a very good reason and so were men but I just think that women have a much wider role in this life than men do. Regardless of what anybody else says because all my life I dealt with women all over and men all over and I just see that women have to deal with a lot more and do a lot more than men do in general. It doesn’t have to be in a specific area or country or village or town, but I just see that women have more responsibilities from the start.
Why do you think the word “feminist” is associated with a negative stigma? What do you think it connotes? How do you think it could change?
Well these are things that I believe were planted in male heads so they can take advantage and literally enslave women, which happened in the past and might still be happening in parts of the world. That’s just like brainwashing – somebody brainwashed somebody or a group of people, so they’re against a certain group of people. I think that’s what it is. But I think you shouldn’t be. How it could change? Well I think women are trying hard and men are also involved in changing it and I think it’s happening. To change we just have to realize that we were taught from the beginning the right way, if we follow the right path, then we have to deal with each other on an equal basis and that’s going to change it immediately.
What issues/reservations do you have with feminism today? What do you personally think needs change?
I don’t think I have any issues. I just feel sometimes women think they’re superior, which is human nature. Anybody can think that. But sometimes women think that, and men do too. That’s the only issue I can think of. I’ve seen it in Morocco, I’ve seen it in France, I’ve seen it in America and other countries and it’s just the nature of humans. I think some people are just like that, you can’t change it. You might change over the years or something but some people just have that in their life, in their mind, in their heart. Either they’re born with it or its implanted within them like a chip.
Is there anything else you’d like to add? Are there any other questions you think I should be asking?
The way I see it; South America, North Africa, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and many other similar countries; all these people are quite similar in what they do and what they go through. And I think there is a way of raising their voice either through music or their art and I think people take advantage of them and it’s a shame and it shouldn’t be happening. I think people ought to start thinking about that on a daily basis. In order to change something, you have to almost think about it on a daily basis as if it’s a religion, otherwise it’s going to be hard. Because you think about it one day and then a month later you never think about it so it’s something that we have to think about on a regular basis in order for us to make any changes.
How does your religion play into your feminism?
I think my religion is quite clear that we have to treat women with respect and regard them especially well. In the book it’s quite obvious: it says that paradise is under your mother’s feet and that explains it all. If you obey your mother and are nice to her, you’re going to go to paradise. That says it all, it means the woman has the power. Imagine; your mother who carried you in her womb for 9 months and then carried you on her back for so many months, fed you from her breast, stayed with you, put you to sleep, fed you, doctored you – who else is going to be that? How can you pay her back? There’s no payment. I don’t care how much people do, they could not pay back one percent of what their mother did for them. That’s not to talk about the people who are the opposite; against their mothers and parents and actually beat them and stuff. We don’t talk about that, we don’t even want to think about that. To be on the positive side, to think about what our mothers did for us just to raise us as babies and as kids, it’s priceless. Like I said, people ought to help these women evolve within their art and whatever they do in life so they can be heard, so they can be happier in their lives. I mean, thank God things are changing but there really needs to be more change.
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This post was originally published on the author’s Tumblr and is republished here with her permission.
Photo credit: Deryne Keretic