Recently, I had a conversation with one of my friends, a young Pakistani girl, about her troubles with her Algerian acquaintance. Being Algerian myself, we hoped that I could bring some light into the situation and help her understand it from a cultural perspective. We sat on her sofa for hours, sipping on chamomile tea and listening to her troubles. However, the more we spoke and the more she explained the behaviour of the people the issue concerned, the deeper I started to think about my country in general. She described certain actions that to any one else’s eyes would seem so toxic but what shocked me was the fact that my first thoughts were this is just typical Algerian behaviour. Straight after, my thoughts changed to but why is that typical Algerian behaviour?
We live in a world where ethnic women on mainstream media are stereotyped as feisty or aggressive, usually imputed from a rough, poor background. Adjectives used to describe these women range from “angry”, “stubborn”, “strong” and “soft”, all at the same time. Take ‘Maddy Perez’ from the show Euphoria as an example. The writers of the show portray her as the stereotypical Latina girl; growing up in a rough household, displaying anger issues throughout her child hood but exuding softness and femininity at the same time. In fact, majority of Latina women produced by Hollywood contain this stereotype; Gloria from Modern Family, Gabriel Solice from Desperate Housewives, Jasmine Flores from On My Block and the list goes on. These attributes are not limited to Latina women. We also have Devi from Never Have I Ever, an Indian teen with convulsive anger problems and a rooted hatred for her ethnicity, Nadia from Elite, a Palestinian private school girl who takes off her hijab, feeding into the oppressed Muslim women stereotype and again and Emma from One Day, who not only does not have an ethnic name but also shows little signs of her culture, other than her skin colour. This is all without mentioning the depictions of Black women in Hollywood, which is another story in itself. Whilst we can show an appreciation towards the feeble attempts to introduce diversity into Hollywood, it would be wrong to deny the fact that all these women of colour are always fitted into a box, one that determines how they should think, behave and react.
The age of TikTok and Instagram reels don’t help these beliefs either, especially with the vast volumes of videos going viral today. Creators like “Juweriya (j.ghaz)” act out Moroccan/North African stereotypes excellently, being both humorous and relatable to young girls like myself who were never represented on mainstream media growing up. Watching satirical videos about typical North African characters transports us back to the comforts of our countries, from the security of our own beds. Many viewers, like myself, are extremely appreciative of these innocuous videos and the intentions behind these videos are fairly innocent I am sure. However, to deny that these videos have not further encouraged the stereotypes surrounding North African women today would be fallacious. The portrayal of women in these videos usually entail them shouting at someone, displaying visible jealousy and hatred towards people or being ‘fake’ or simply having a lack of propriety in public settings. To non North African viewers, it is probably just 30 seconds of pleasure that they will hardly think about but the damage is irreversible. Skits like these instil a subconscious belief that will be rooted within them forever. And to North African viewers like myself? It is just another step backwards in our attempt to be taken seriously in the world.
Some readers may sit there and say “Well, the stereotypes are true! A lot of North African women do act like that”. As a North African woman myself, I am not going to deny that. I can name at least a dozen family members of mine who have those exact attributes, including myself. However, it is important to understand where these behaviours stem from and to do that, we must first acknowledge the history of colonialism that took place in 19th and 20th century North Africa, so sit back and enjoy a very quick history lesson. Summing it up shortly, in 1830, France first invaded Algeria, then shortly took control over Tunisia in 1881 and then Morocco in 1912. Italy invaded Libya and the British took Egypt. All countries at one point fought back and gained their independence between the 1950’s and 1960’s but that did not mean all is well. Being under European rule for over 100 years left the economies in a state and resulted in a desperate power struggle between political parties which lead to a civil war in Algeria between 1990 and 2001, meaning even more bloodshed and violence.
You most likely feel bombarded you with dates and facts that have flown right over your head so let me use a different means of comparison so that we can understand the facts better. If you are Algerian, your parents grew up in the civil war. They were around your age when bombs were set off near their houses and classmates kidnapped from their schools. Instead of watching cartoons after school, they tuned in to the news everyday, praying a family member would not appear on there. If you are North African, your grandparents would have been alive when your countries were still colonised. Your great grandparents would have known your country before colonialism. Does that put it into perspective for you?
So is it so surprising that North African women have strong attitudes and aggressive personalities? It is no wonder that a lot of ethnic women are more susceptible to anxiety and symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, even when we may not have suffered any sort of trauma. The oppression our parents and grandparents went through buried itself deep in their DNA and thanks to epigenetics, transferred itself onto their off springs; aka us. Intergenerational trauma takes many forms and pair that with the mental health taboo that exists in our culture, as well as many cultures around the world, the probability of us healing our mental states are significantly reduced. On top of that, women like me who are trying to navigate living in a first world country and create an alternative narrative to the one that is imposed on us are having actively to fight against these allegations every day. Although this article is mainly focused on North African women, it is not limited to just females. North African men have also been through as much trauma and are also facing their own stereotypes and pre-determined beliefs and it is just as important that we recognise their troubles in the step towards debilitating our labels. That is for a different article perhaps.
Recognising the effects of intergenerational trauma in our cultures is a first step of many towards healing. Making peace with the fact that generations before us have suffered and that it is okay to feel the consequences is crucial to understanding our behaviour and fixing it. The effects of intergenerational trauma is quite an interesting subject, one I highly recommend everyone reading this to delve into. The focus of this article was mainly North African women but I am sure that many women of colour around the world, or just people of colour in general, can relate to the points discussed in this article.
If this resonated with you, leave a comment or like :)
By Lina Boudelaa
