Abstract
The purpose of this interpretive study was to explore how Saudi Arabian women construct and present the self through their choice of dress for the private sphere. The work was situated within the interactionist and dramaturgical traditions. Data were collected via in-depth interviews with 15 Saudi Arabian women and were analyzed using constant comparison processes. Analyses revealed three key themes related to Saudi women’s use of private sphere dress to construct and present the self: (a) conceptualizing the desired self, (b) making sense of the marketplace: the role of traditional and Western dress in mobilizing desired selves, and (c) looking glasses: the role of others in mobilizing desired selves. Findings revealed that as they presented the self through dress within the private sphere, Saudi women engaged in a complex process of navigating Islamic teachings and Saudi cultural conventions, shifting cultural mores, and the diverse expectations of others.
In Saudi Arabia, women’s presentation of the self through dress is shaped to a large extent by the setting in which the dress is worn and the audience for whom the presentation of self is made (Al-Munajjed, 1997; Long, 2005). In the public sphere—that is, anywhere outside the home where women are in the presence of males who are not considered to be next of kin—Saudi women are required by law to practice hijab or veiling (Le Renard, 2008). For Saudi women, observing hijab includes the wearing of traditional forms of dress (e.g., the abbaya with a head scarf and burqah or niqab) that cover the entire body except for the hands and eyes (Long, 2005). Dress conventions for Saudi women are different, however, within the private sphere, which encompasses women’s interactions with their next of kin (male or female) and/or with women to whom they are not related. These interactions may occur within private homes or gender-segregated locations (i.e., spaces where only women are allowed). So defined, the private sphere of Saudi women encompasses a broad range of situations and contexts, including their interactions with other women at gender-segregated schools, workplaces, shopping centers, and events (e.g., weddings, holiday celebrations; Al-Munajjed, 1997; Le Renard, 2008). In contrast to their public sphere dress, Saudi women’s private sphere dress is open to individual choice and may include traditional Saudi styles (e.g., modest, long dresses with long sleeves), or, in recent years, Western styles (Le Renard, 2008).
To date, the bulk of the research examining Saudi women’s dress has focused upon dress worn in the public sphere, providing detailed descriptions of the garments worn (e.g., the abbaya) and exploring diverse perspectives on hijab/veiling (Fertile-Bishop & Gilliam, 1981; Pharaon, 2004; Rabolt & Forney, 1989). In contrast, relatively little empirical work has considered Saudi women’s private sphere dress practices, especially from the perspectives of the wearers themselves, perhaps owing to the relative impenetrability of outside researchers into the private sphere of Saudi women. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to explore how Saudi women construct and present the self through their choice of dress for the private sphere. Of interest were the women’s views on traditional versus Westernized dress for the private sphere and the role of others in shaping their presentation of self through dress.
Literature Review
Cultural Context of Saudi Arabia
The cultural aspects of Saudi Arabia, including its dress, cannot be separated from its religious ties to the Islamic faith. In the Saudi context, Islam is viewed not only as a religion but also as a system of law and a way of living (Long, 2005; Pharaon, 2004). Sexual morality is required within all social roles, with women’s modesty more strictly guarded than men’s (Al-Dabbagh, 2006; Al-Munajjed, 1997). As such, female modesty is emphasized within government sanctions controlling women’s appearances and conduct, as exemplified in the requirement that women observe hijab while in the public sphere (Long, 2005). Further, women are forbidden to interact socially with men other than their husbands and immediate male relatives, as doing so is viewed as immoral (Doumato, 2003). Thus, most of the time, a separation of nonrelative, adult males and females is mandated in schools, mosques, workplaces, and other areas of public and private life (Pompea, 2002). In public situations, separation is upheld by the wearing of a veil to shield a woman’s body from the male gaze (Al-Munajjed, 1997), with the veil acting as a physical and symbolic partition between the sexes (Bullock, 2003). Within the private setting of the home, the separation of women from males who are not next of kin is achieved by female seclusion in separate quarters reserved for family and female friends (Rabolt & Forney, 1989).
Since the discovery of a sizable oil reserve in the country in 1938, Saudi Arabia has experienced large-scale economic shifts, rapid industrialization and modernization, and increased contact with the West (Long, 2005; Wilson, 2004). Thus, although Saudi Arabia is a country steeped in tradition, its culture—particularly the country’s views on the roles and status of women—has undergone much change over the last several decades, especially in recent years. For instance, although the first Saudi university for women did not open until 1979 (Hamdan, 2005), women now constitute 62% of students enrolled in higher education (Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission, 2009). Further, although they were once kept out of the workforce due to a lack of education and social barriers prohibiting their freedom to work, Saudi women have become more involved in a variety of occupations, including those traditionally held by men (Fatany, 2007; Pharaon, 2004). There also have been recent increases among Saudi women in international travel (Fatany, 2007). And, in 2011, women gained the right to vote (Said, 2011). Taken together, these developments represent noteworthy shifts in thinking about the role of women in Saudi society as well as new realms of possibility for Saudi women.
Saudi Arabian Women’s Dress for Private Sphere
Traditional Dress
Traditional dress encompasses all garments and modifications of the body that incarnate the past traditions and members of a group in order to preserve and provide significance for a cultural heritage (Eicher & Sumberg, 1995). Traditional dress not only defines its wearer in terms of ethnic or cultural origin but also provides insights into cultural values and ideals (Forney & Rabolt, 1997; Rovine, 2009). The traditional private sphere dress of Saudi Arabia predates the country’s birth in 1932 by several centuries (Al-Bassam & Sudqi, 1999; Long, 2005) and has been characterized as a long-sleeved, floor-length dress with a high collar. The dress is designed to follow the lines of the body and to preserve the wearer’s modesty by minimizing bodily exposure (Yamani, 2004; see Figure 1). Kennett (1995) describes the dress as being colorful and richly embroidered around the neckline, arms, and sleeves. Shades of red, orange, and green are typically used in the embroideries (Iskandarani, 2006; Long, 2005; Yamani, 2004). Although all traditional private sphere dress in Saudi Arabia is modest and similar in basic style, some regional variations do exist.
Example of a traditional private sphere dress.
The traditional private dress in Saudi Arabia has a long history but has undergone rapid change and become nearly obsolete since the discovery of oil in the 1930s and the subsequent introduction of Western influence (Long, 2005; Yamani, 2004). It has been suggested that today relatively few women wear traditional private sphere dress and that those who do typically reserve its use for times of celebration or religious occasions (Iskandarani, 2006).
Western Dress/Influences
Although the private sphere dress of Saudi women has changed more slowly than that of other nations, the pace of change has been rapid since the introduction of oil (Long, 2005; Pompea, 2002; Wilson, 2004). In a matter of only a few decades, the traditional private sphere dress that had been worn for centuries has been discarded in favor of Western fashions such as dresses of varying lengths, trousers, and shirts (Al-Dabbagh, 2006; Long, 2005; Yamani, 2004). This change is well demonstrated in findings from Al-Dabbagh’s (2006) research examining consumer responses to the Saudi ready-to-wear market, which revealed that between 1981 and 2004 there was a shift among Saudi women in preferences toward more Westernized dress for private sphere use.
The introduction of Westernized media—including television, the Internet, and movies—into Saudi Arabia has been identified by cultural scholars and critics as a potentially significant influence on the culture and dress of the region (Fatany, 2007; Yamani, 2004). Yamani (2004) has argued that as early as the 1950s, Egyptian films based on Western lifestyles infused Western views into Saudis’ lives, inspiring new fashions, especially among the elite. Mernissi (2005) has proposed that several popular Arabic television channels now feature shows that take their cues from Western media, mixing Westernized images, themes, and values with those of the Arabic culture. Images of scantily dressed women have provoked debates between representatives of the entertainment industry and Islamic authorities and also have become sources of inspiration for Arabic women, who invoke them as guides for their choice of dress in the private sphere (Mernissi, 2005; Zuhur, 2005). According to some, these expanded possibilities for self-expression through dress pose a quagmire for contemporary Arabic women who experience a tension between adopting fashions and behaviors promoted as desirable within the Westernized media and adopting more conservative and moralistic fashions and behaviors that traditionally have been valued within their native culture (Zuhur, 2005). For many, the result is a balancing act of sorts. For instance, based upon her field study exploring Saudi women’s lifestyles, Le Renard (2008) observed that although women attending university in Saudi Arabia were required to conform to expectations for traditional Saudi dress (e.g., they had to wear long skirts), they also managed their appearances so as to display acute awareness of Western fashions.
Varied factors may explain the adoption of Westernized dress by Saudi women. Rabolt and Forney (1989) used an oral survey approach to explore the dress preferences of Saudi women nationals and found that women who had higher socioeconomic status, had worked outside of the home, were more “cosmopolitan” (i.e., had traveled outside of Saudi Arabia), were more highly educated, and were younger were more likely to wear more Westernized dress in private settings. Overall, findings revealed less change in public sphere dress choices as compared to private sphere dress choices (i.e., less movement toward Westernized dress). The researchers hypothesized that these findings may reflect the moral sanctions placed on women in public, and, in particular, religious laws prohibiting the wearing of Westernized dress in public. Thus, in the participants’ eyes, the private sphere may have been the only place where it was acceptable for them to create their own identity through dress.
Theoretical Framework
This work takes as its point of departure the interactionist premise that the dressed body plays an important role in the acquisition and development of identity and a sense of self (Roach-Higgins & Eicher, 1992; Stone, 1962). That is, symbolic interactionists view dressed bodies as social objects invested with meanings that are produced through social interactions (Shilling, 2003). These meanings provide a basis for people to use dress to help announce or communicate identities so as to position themselves as social objects (Stone, 1962). In turn, others assign meaning to these self-presentations and act toward people on the basis of these meanings, drawing upon them to fit together their lines of action with others and to develop feedback or reviews of others’ dress (Stone, 1962). Individuals reflect upon the reviews that others provide to them and may integrate these reflected appraisals into their sense of self, using them to imagine future reactions to their dress and to guide future body-related behaviors and interactions (Mead, 1934; Stone, 1962). In this way, people may use others as “looking glasses” (Cooley, 1902) to tell them who they are, how they should appear, and how they should behave.
Like symbolic interaction theory, Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective focuses upon the construction of the self within social interactions as well as the messages that managed appearances send to observers. Within this perspective, individuals are viewed as social actors who, in their various interactions, enact diverse “selves,” influencing others’ definitions of them and of the self (Goffman, 1959). These definitions are shaped by actors’ “fronts,” or their appearances, behaviors, and the setting in which the interactions occur, and serve to guide subsequent interactions (1959, pp. 23-24). According to Goffman (1967), social interaction is also guided by the feelings that individuals attach to different self-presentations and the desire that they feel to present a viable self or a self that is socially acceptable in a given context. As such, within the context of the dramaturgical perspective, the self can be conceptualized in terms of “impression management,” with dress acting as a symbol of the self invoked in the service of constructing positive impressions and avoiding negative ones as individuals enact various role performances (Goffman, 1959; Guy & Banim, 2000; Markus & Nurius, 1986; Schouten, 1991).
Finally, Gergen’s (2000, 2011) work on the “saturation of the self” can provide insight into the ways in which dress is used to construct and present identity and the self within swiftly changing, postmodern cultural contexts. Gergen (2000, 2011) argues that in the postmodern era, contemporary modes of communication and travel present to us numerous, faraway realities that are often in conflict and expose us to diverse attitudes and possible ways of being. In such a cultural moment, the adoption of a generalized other—or a unified sense of a communal attitude (Mead, 1934)—becomes somewhat problematic. Thus, rather than adopting the perspective of a generalized other, individuals experience what Gergen (2011) has referred to as “social saturation,” or a “dense population of the self,” in which they consider numerous significant and generalized others whose “voices” represent diverse and often incompatible perspectives. Gergen (2011) uses the term “multiphrenia” (“many minds”) to refer to this pattern of self-consciousness, which may be characterized by a sense of feeling torn or uncertain about who we are or should be, sometimes undermining the notion that there exists a single “true” or “real” self. Gergen’s (2011) notion that identity is not fixed but rather is constructed and reconstructed in concert with the diverse realities faced in everyday life is well suited to exploring how Saudi women construct presentations of the self using dress within the private sphere. Saudi Arabia in many ways represents a country in which bringing together old influences as well as those born out of the new era of economic advancement creates constant change in everyday realities. Of interest in the present study is discovering how Saudi women make daily dress decisions by negotiating the many traditional and modern influences present in their everyday lives.
Justification and Research Questions
Relatively few researchers have examined Saudi women’s private sphere dress practices; prior work in which private sphere dress is discussed has, for the most part, been limited to descriptions of Saudi traditional dress as artifacts and to propositions by Saudi scholars and cultural critics about the shift from traditional to Western dress and the role of Westernized media influences in shaping this shift. Of the three empirical studies that were identified, only one was focused upon Saudi women’s private sphere dress practices, specifically (Rabolt & Forney, 1989); the other two contained broader topics (e.g., the Saudi apparel market, Saudi women’s lifestyles) and provided limited exploration of private sphere dress (Al-Dabbagh, 2006; Le Renard, 2008). Although Rabolt and Forney (1989) offered insights regarding the factors that may influence Saudi women’s adoption of Western dress for the private sphere, they did not consider whether and how Saudi women may use private sphere dress to construct the self or to make meaning in their lives nor did they consider the role of others in shaping Saudi women’s presentations of self through private sphere dress. Further, Rabolt and Forney are Western researchers and employed a priori categories for purposes of data collection, and this work is now over 25 years old. Thus, findings may reflect Western assumptions about dress within the Arabian Gulf and may no longer accurately represent the contemporary cultural milieu of Saudi Arabia and the realities of Saudi women’s lives, which have seen much change in recent years (Fatany, 2007).
With the present research, measures were taken to avoid Western bias, as the research team included a Saudi female researcher (the first author) who collected the data for the study using an interpretive approach, which allowed meanings to emerge from the Saudi participants themselves. Specifically, guided by an interactionist, dramaturgical theoretical approach, this work addressed existing weaknesses and gaps in the literature by exploring meaning in Saudi women’s private sphere dress, seeking to answer the following questions: How do Saudi women use dress to construct the self within context of the private sphere? What meanings do Saudi women associate with various forms of private sphere dress available within the contemporary Saudi marketplace, including traditional and Western forms of dress? How do these meanings shape Saudi women’s self-presentations within the private sphere? How do important others in Saudi women’s lives shape their presentations of self through private sphere dress?
Method
For the present work, we adopted an interpretive, qualitative approach that drew upon grounded and reflexive processes to data generation and analysis. In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 Saudi women. Purposive, nonprobability sampling was used to recruit participants from two metropolitan areas within Saudi Arabia (i.e., the cities of Jeddah and Medina). An initial list of potential participants was identified through two key informants who maintained a wide social circle. An informational letter was sent to the potential participants through e-mail, and interested individuals were contacted to schedule interviews.
Participants ranged in age between 20 and 60 years (mean age = 30 years) and had been married 1 between 3 months and 35 years. All but two participants had pursued some form of postsecondary education. Although a majority of the participants were homemakers, three worked outside the home in white-collar positions (human resources, education) and one was a student. Husbands’ jobs varied, but most participants shared a middle-class or upper middle-class lifestyle. Although several participants had traveled abroad, none had lived abroad.
An in-depth, semistructured approach was used for the interviewing process. Interview questions focused upon (a) what participants wished to express about the self through dress worn in the private sphere, (b) how participants made decisions about dress worn in the private sphere, and (c) how participants viewed the wearing of traditional and Western dress within the private sphere. The interviews also included a photo elicitation and/or wardrobe analysis component in which participants were asked to bring photos of themselves wearing private sphere dress and/or garments worn within the private sphere. These artifacts were used to guide discussion during the interview. All interviews took place in private settings (e.g., the participants’ homes), were conducted in Arabic, and lasted between 40 and 90 min.
Interview data were translated into English, were transcribed, and were analyzed using constant comparison processes (Glaser & Strauss 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Through the process of “open coding,” key concepts within the data were identified and were grouped together under higher order, more abstract concepts or categories (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Next, the concepts and categories were developed into a coding guide that was applied to the data, continuing until the categories were saturated (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). At the final stage of analysis, the researchers used “axial” and “selective” coding to search for higher order connections within the data (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). To establish the trustworthiness and dependability of data collection and analysis, the researchers used journaling and peer review. The first author maintained a journal to foster reflection about data collection and analysis. The researchers also met throughout the coding processes, exploring meanings identified within the data until mutual understanding was achieved. Additionally, an audit coder checked the first author’s application of the coding guide to the data. Disagreements in category assignments were negotiated. Interrater reliability was 93.15% and was calculated by dividing the total number of agreements in coding decisions by the total number of coding decisions made.
Emergent Themes
As participants spoke about the lived realities of presenting the self through private sphere dress, their accounts crystallized around three key themes: (a) conceptualizing the desired self, (b) making sense of the marketplace, the role of traditional and Western dress in mobilizing desired selves, and (c) looking glasses, the role of others in mobilizing desired selves.
Conceptualizing the Desired Self
Throughout their accounts, participants spoke of using private sphere dress to construct a “desired self”—or representations of idealized identities. In so doing, they referenced varied “possible selves” (Markus & Nurius, 1986, p. 954) that resembled closely the coexisting views of the self identified by Guy and Banim (2000) as the various “women” their participants wanted to be or feared they might become. Here, we adapt Guy and Banim’s conceptualization of the self as including varied and coexisting views but modify these views to fit with our data.
Women Participants Wanted to Be
Much in the spirit of Cooley (1902), who proposes that individuals often present themselves to “seem a little better than [they] are” (p. 352), participants’ accounts of private sphere dress reflected a desire to manage the impressions “given off” in such a way as to construct a desirable self-presentation (Goffman, 1959, p. 2) for the self and others, conceptualized here as The Woman I Want to Be (Guy & Banim, 2000). Implicit here are participants’ conceptualizations of how they wanted to look or appear before others when presenting the self in private sphere dress as well as the various considerations that contributed to their construction of these desired self-presentations. Constructing the desired self—or the Woman I Want to Be—was seen as successful when presentations achieved a chosen image because the clothing worn produced a sought-after visual outcome or induced positive feelings of confidence. Participants identified several aspects of the Woman They Wanted to Be (i.e., the desired self). Aspects of the desired self echoed both personal and broader cultural values and often reflected an enduring quality in participants’ lives, to a great extent “reflecting images that [had] already been” (Guy & Banim, 2000, p. 316).
The most central theme in participants’ accounts of their efforts to construct desired selves through private sphere dress revolved around a theme of authenticity, particularly the capacity of dress to reliably express one’s true or essential self. Thus, although at various junctures in their narratives participants acknowledged that they used dress to convey diverse facets of their selves, they also found a great deal of security and psychological comfort in wearing dress that was “like the real me” (cf., Pines & Roll, 1984): “It’s my favorite, I love it to death [because] I just feel like wow, this is me” (Participant 14, 28 years). Frequently interwoven within discussions of dress as a tool to represent the “genuine self” was a commitment to wearing dress that was thought of as “straightforward,” “natural,” and “simple in its design”—or dress that conveyed that one was “not a fake person” (Participant 14, 28 years).
In activating the desired self—or the Woman I Want to Be—participants also emphasized the construction of a unique appearance, preferring to shop at local boutiques rather than mass merchants, as they sought to construct distinctive self-presentations. For participants, the assembly of a unique appearance—or having private sphere dress that was unlike that of others—was viewed as an expression of one’s originality, personality, and creativity as well as a conduit for enhanced self-esteem: “I like to be unique and I hate to find someone who is wearing something like me … it just has a negative influence. Being unique makes you look nice or special” (Participant 13, 37 years). Like the participants in Guy and Banim’s (2000) sample, the participants in the present study sought uniqueness in careful measure, acknowledging that constructing appearances that were “too unique” could detract from one’s capacity to foster a positive impression in the eyes of others.
Another aspect of the desired self revolved around the issue of social class. By and large, participants readily acknowledged the contextual importance of class within Saudi culture: “You know, Saudi society really judges people through their dress. You will find them looking for famous brands or not, they will look at your watch, your shoes, to your outfit” (Participant 13, 37 years). Perhaps for this reason, participants frequently characterized the Woman They Wanted to Be as one whose socioeconomic status was inscribed upon her private sphere dress for others to see. In other cases, however, audience considerations prompted participants to dress outside of their social class so as to conceal from onlookers their “true” social class membership, misrepresenting the self as either less or more well-off than was really the case (see Goffman, 1959). For instance, middle-class participants occasionally adopted status symbols of higher classes to gain acceptance among wealthier acquaintances. Conversely, more well-off participants noted that they sometimes dressed in the simpler dress of the middle class out of a desire not to call undue attention to the self and/or not to attract people for the “wrong” reasons:
I am from a well-known family, so everyone will expect me to show off my dress…but, I don’t like when someone will only be my friend because of my family…Sometimes, I want to hide my identity, and that’s why I wear simple dress because I don’t want my dress to tell people that I am from this family. (Participant 13, 37 years)
As noted, the Islamic religion exerts a powerful influence upon Saudi life (Long, 2005). When taken with Goffman’s (1959) proposition that social interactions are shaped by an individual’s desire to present a socially acceptable self, it is perhaps logical that religion would play a significant role in the daily choices of Saudi life—including what to wear. As such, it is not surprising that participants’ accounts of the desired selves they wished to construct through their private sphere dress practices were frequently predicated upon the concept of modesty as guided by the principles of the Islamic faith:
The nice and fancy clothes can be modest, especially for evening dresses, it doesn’t have to be revealing to be nice … the message I want to show through this dress is that I can have a fancy, chic dress that is modest and that pleases God. (Participant 2, 22 years)
Not all participants, however, embraced the same degree of modesty in their private sphere dress; some women, such as Participant 2, espoused more conservative dress norms, whereas others were more liberal in their interpretation of what constituted modest private dress. For instance, participants varied in how they regarded awrah, the traditional Islamic teaching based upon prophetic scripture and consensus opinion stipulating which portions of the body must be covered for various audiences and settings 2 (Padela & del Pozo, 2011). Some noted that awrah was just a “starting point” for modest private sphere dress, whereas others felt that so long as the minimum guidelines of awrah were met, modesty had been achieved. Further, some participants acknowledged shifting norms of modesty for private sphere dress in contemporary Saudi society, disapprovingly suggesting that for some Muslim people “the signal for how they decide what is fancy or not is how revealing of your body it is” (Participant 2, 22 years).
In characterizing desired self-presentations for the private sphere, several participants also shared that they wished to represent the self as a “fashion trendsetter” who maintained a stylish image worthy of admiration by others: “I want people to see me as pleasing and beautiful. By wearing trendy dress, I want to show others that I know what clothing choices are tasteful and stylish” (Participant 15, 27 years). For these participants, then, assembling a “high-fashion” image necessitated everyday interactions with the fashion market and with other trendsetters. Participants described regularly engaging with fashion publications, and some even made shopping pilgrimages to faraway destinations such as Italy and Beirut, which were conceived of as rich sources of high fashion goods. In addition to seeking validation of the self through the creation of a fashionable appearance (Stone, 1962), participants who most valued presenting the self as “trendy” cherished their roles as “fashion advisors” for friends and family members.
Other factors that emerged as salient in participants’ attempts to construct the Woman I Want to Be included the desires to present the self in an “age-appropriate” manner and to accrue an expansive private sphere wardrobe that accommodated diverse presentations of the self.
Women Participants Did Not Want to Be
As they characterized the selves they wished to present to others, participants sometimes engaged in a form of identity management through consideration of what they did not wish to convey about the self, which Freitas and colleagues (1997) have referred to as an “identity not!” (p. 323). That is, by referencing identities that they wished to avoid—or the Women They Did Not Want to Be (cf., Guy & Banim, 2000)—as a guide for the construction of their self-presentations, participants shaped “the unknown into a knowable opposite” (Garrison, 1982, p. 229), seemingly quelling anxieties relative to issues of body image and cultural demands for propriety.
Many participants expressed concerns about the body, particularly the notion that their bodies did not conform to cultural body ideals, which, like those in the West, emphasized thinness. Participants spoke of the ways in which they used private sphere dress as a means by which to conceal aspects of the body that were regarded as flawed: wearing looser shirts, for instance, to camouflage a fuller waist. At the same time, however, they revealed angst relative to the possibility that their ability to obscure their perceived defect from the view of others would somehow be compromised, causing them to reveal an undesired presentation of the self—The Woman I Do Not Want to Be (Guy & Banim, 2000). For instance, they sometimes felt that their capacity to wear certain types of clothing was undermined by their desire to present the body in a certain manner: “I like to show my good features and hide my flaws … If I see something really beautiful, but it does not fit my body, then it will be ugly” (Participant 3, 22 years).
In other cases, participants expressed concern about presentations of self that would somehow bring dishonor to the self or to Saudi society as a result of disregard for norms of cultural propriety. In many cases, the issue of modesty was at stake here. Poised at a cultural crossroads with standards for modesty in a state of fluctuation, participants spoke of the trickiness inherent in navigating the thin line between constructing a fashionable appearance and one that pushed the boundaries too far past the cultural norms of modesty (cf., Zuhur, 2005):
Sometimes you will see something you like from these Western things, but you will never wear it… . Not everything in the West is appropriate here. It’s not appropriate for our culture, our society, and our environment. (Participant 12, 31 years)
Thus, patent immodesty was regarded as an identity to be avoided and was conceptualized as a manifestation of the Woman I Don’t Want to Be. In fact, Participant 7 (24 years) remarked that dressing in an immodest fashion disgraced not just the self but the Saudi culture as well.
For other participants, the Woman I Don’t Want to Be was one who was “underdressed” for an important social event—a social faux pas reflective of one’s social standing and class which was thought to bring discredit to the self and potentially to one’s family (cf., Goffman, 1959). Finally, participants expressed concern that they may select private sphere dress that made them look older than they actually were, such that their impression management techniques may fail and they would not continue to look “young and beautiful” (Participant 10, 40 years).
Making Sense of the Marketplace: The Role of Traditional and Western Dress in Mobilizing Desired Selves
As participants described their attempts to mobilize desired selves, they frequently referenced the dress resources available to them in the contemporary Saudi marketplace. At the center of these discussions were the meanings participants assigned to various forms of dress available within the marketplace, including traditional dress as well as Westernized styles.
Participants characterized traditional dress as both supporting and undermining desired self-presentations or the Women They Wanted to Be. Notably, participants regarded traditional dress as buttressing their desire to present the self as modest and as having a rightful position within Saudi culture for the purpose of honoring customs and feeling “in the spirit” of their ancestors (Participant 15, 27 years). By wearing traditional dress for holidays and cultural gatherings, participants constructed identities intended to pay homage to long-honored beliefs and ways of life. Religious occasions, such as Ramadan, were noted as times during which the wearing of traditional dress was particularly appropriate—owing to its modest design—and held nostalgic meaning, “During Ramadan, since we were kids, we have seen people wearing traditional dress, and because it’s the religion, it inspires us to wear these kinds of modest clothes” (Participant 8, 29 years). The wearing of traditional dress was construed by all participants as central to substance of certain traditional celebrations. For instance, 22-year-old Participant 3 noted that, absent of traditional dress, the essence of the (female-only) Ghomrah party, a customary Saudi bridal celebration (Iskandarani, 2006), would be lost, “The bride and her family must wear the traditional … they are losing the value of the party if they do not.”
Not all participants, however, viewed traditional dress as the mechanism through which to realize The Woman I Want to Be. For instance, younger participants in particular often expressed the view that traditional dress was outdated and was inconsistent with the role demands of their everyday lives, calling to mind Hobsbawm and Ranger’s (2012) observation that cultural traditions are constantly evolving:
I feel it is archaic and it is not appropriate for the place that I am going or spending time. I never … wear it. I feel [traditional dresses] are artifacts—we put them on display to watch it, not to wear it. (Participant 1, 28 years old)
For women like Participant 1, then, Westernized dress (e.g., jeans, t-shirts, “short” dresses) offered a viable sartorial alternative for mobilizing desired selves—or the Women They Wanted to Be—and one that was highly regarded for its fashionability, ready availability, comfort, practicality, versatility, and low cost:
It’s comfortable and [provides] more variety with the different options of tops for the different occasions. Even older women could wear jeans—but not with a t-shirt. They need more formal shirts or loose tops to wear with the jeans. (Participant 11, 25 years)
A common thread running through participants’ discussions of Western dress concerned the issue of modesty and the opinion that some Western fashions (e.g., above-the-knee dresses, low-cut dresses or shirts, low-waisted pants) could not easily accommodate Saudi standards of modesty. For some participants, this posed no dilemma; these women espoused the belief that personal standards of appropriateness for dress must be met no matter the fashion (i.e., traditional or Western) and that, therefore, immodest Western fashions should not be worn. For many participants, however, the Saudi culture demands for modesty and the fashion-forward stylings of Western dress available in the marketplace did represent a quagmire of sorts, echoing the premises of Gergen’s (2000) work on multiphrenia and social saturation and inciting a sense of tension and uncertainty. These women were drawn to the fashionability of less modest Westernized looks but at the same time felt that their desire to look fashionable was complicated by their obligations to the Islamic faith. Twenty-seven-year-old Participant 15, for instance, struggled with navigating the modesty versus (Western) fashion dilemma, but ultimately concluded that her “fashion desires [were] stronger than [her] religious convictions.”
Looking Glasses: The Role of Others in Mobilizing Desired Selves
Woven throughout participants’ accounts was the evidence that they invoked specific and generalized others (Mead, 1934) in their lives as looking glasses to tell them “who to be” and “how to appear” (Cooley, 1902), viewing themselves through the eyes and impressions of these others as they sought to stage presentations of the self within the private sphere: “I wasn’t convinced I should wear it, but because most people told me it was really nice, I changed my mind. I mean, people liked it, so why not? Everyone cares about people’s opinions” (Participant 11, 25 years). Participant 11’s acknowledgment that “everyone cares about people’s opinions” was shared among many participants and often was associated with a broader observation that Saudi society was a highly “judgmental” one in which the dressed body was viewed as constituent of one’s identity, “You are judged according to how you are dressed” (Participant 12, 31 years). In turn, this assumption about Saudi life rendered looking glass processes and reflected appraisals (Cooley, 1902) as salient in shaping decisions about what to wear, particularly when their private sphere interactions included people who did not know them well.
Participants mentioned diverse others—including their husbands, in-laws, mothers, sisters, and friends—as shaping their thoughts about what constituted an appropriate presentation of the self for the private sphere. At a most basic level, participants’ accounts reflected a desire for validation from these various others that their dress choices were appropriate for an occasion (e.g., adequately modest), becoming, and/or fashionable, and they managed their appearances in such a way as to elicit reviews to this effect (Stone, 1962). Husbands emerged as the most influential “specific others” in shaping participants’ mobilization of the desired self for the private sphere, perhaps reflecting the significance of pleasing one’s husband as a tenet of Islamic teachings (Al-Jehani, 2005). Inherent in many of the women’s accounts about their husbands’ influence upon their dress was the notion of a woman’s “adornments” as instruments of sexual attraction, which also is a precept of Islamic ideology (Bullock, 2003): “I will look for something to attract him and help him not to look at other women…the most important time I care about my appearance is when I am with my husband at home” (Participant 2, 22 years). Culturally, in-laws were perceived by Saudi women as “having their husband’s ear,” and, and as such, they also exerted an important influence upon private sphere dress, particularly for new brides who were not well acquainted with their in-laws.
In addition to identifying specific others as significant in guiding desired self-presentations for the private sphere, participants spoke to the role of the mass media and the fashion industry—invoked as generalized others—in shaping ideas about what was “trendy” or “fashionable” within a Saudi milieu rife with shifting meanings and traditional as well as Western influences (cf., Fatany, 2007; Yamani, 2004), “I just think looking at [Western and Arabic] magazines or watching a fashion TV show or going window shopping will help me to recognize and decide what is stylish and what is not” (Participant 15, 27 years). Important to note, however, is the critical lens with which participants approached Western fashion and media information that did not fit with their personal value systems or that may elicit negative reviews among others. For instance, Participant 15 remarked that she would not wear short dresses or skinny pants such as those promoted in magazines “particularly in front of religious people. I am not that religious, but I don’t like to disrespect their values.”
Participant 15’s comment that she does not wear certain types of clothing in front of “religious people” out of respect for their values reflects Goffman’s (1959) propositions about audience segmentation, or the notion that people may manipulate their appearances—going so far as to use dress to become someone “new” for different audiences—in such a way so as to invite their audience to look upon them favorably and/or to elicit positive reviews of the self.
Saudi women’s “audiences” and roles in the private sphere are quite varied, considering that diverse occasions, such as weddings, family gatherings, holiday celebrations, and everyday life at school and work, may occur within the private sphere. As such, within the context of the private sphere, participants were constantly adjusting and redefining themselves to construct a presentation of self that embodied the desires of their specified audiences and that allowed them to adjust the presentation of the self to suit the diverse roles that they adopted in their lives, some of which were relatively new to female role takers in the Saudi Arabian context (e.g., professional). Participant 15 (27 years) explained her many private sphere audiences and how her desired self was different for each:
For work, I mostly adopt professional dress with suits … I want to show that I’m a respectful, well-educated teacher who follows the rules.
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With my family, I don’t care what I wear, I will be in my ugly, soft pajamas. They have seen me on the worst days and are never going to judge me because of how I dress. At a special occasion, I want to be seen as fancy with elegant taste… . At home my message is that I am a sexy wife. I show my body with either tight or exposing dress. I don’t want my husband to stop looking at me with grateful eyes thinking that he married the most beautiful woman in the world.
Participants’ felt need to present different selves for different audiences was prompted not only by the diverse nature of the interactions that occurred within the private sphere but also by the complex and evolving nature of the Saudi Arabian cultural context itself, which simultaneously exposed participants to traditional and modern influences. For instance, participants’ narratives were filled with accounts of wanting to appear “trendy” and “modern” (e.g., dressed in the latest Western styles promoted with the fashion magazines) for some audiences and modest and more traditional for other audiences. That is, in the spirit of Gergen’s (2011) work on social saturation and multiphrenia, participants were exposed to multiple possibilities for presenting the self and as a result found themselves at the mercy of diverse societal influences or pulls, carefully navigating these influences by crafting differing versions of the self for presentation to differing audiences. Some women navigated these waters with aplomb and seemed rather comfortable constructing differing fronts for differing audiences:
If you’re going to a social event only for girls, it will be different than if there are older ladies … I want to respect their age and I won’t wear something short or revealing. But, if I am just with my friends, I will wear whatever is fashionable. (Participant 13, 37 years)
For others, however, the perceived need to present diverse and sometimes incompatible versions of the self was a source of tension, stress, and/or ambivalence. For instance, 27-year-old Participant 15 spoke about the differences between her views on modest dress and those of her mother, noting that her mother’s more conservative dress requirements for her “make me feel a lump in my heart to stop wearing [above-the-knee clothes] …but I don’t want to stop.” For these women, deciding what to wear on a given occasion or for a given audience could consume much time and energy, and when a satisfactory conclusion could not be reached, these participants occasionally decided to forego participation in said occasion.
Discussion and Conclusions
Findings from the present work add new insights about the previously little understood private sphere dress practices of Saudi women by identifying how Saudi women use various forms of private sphere dress to construct the self and identity, lending understanding about the meanings associated with various private sphere dress forms, and shedding light about the role of others in shaping the construction of the self through private sphere dress. Specifically, findings demonstrated that, in many ways, the identities that participants constructed through the use of private sphere dress were multilayered ones that reflected the multidimensional nature of the self (Markus & Nurius, 1986) and the intricacies of the evolving Saudi cultural context. The fulcrum around which participants’ accounts revolved was the notion that both traditional and Western dress were instrumental in helping them to fashion diverse aspects of the desired selves—or the idealized identities—that they wished to mobilize within the context of the private sphere. Traditional dress was deeply valued by many participants but was regarded as a contextually bound form of dress largely reserved for holidays and special occasions (Iskandarani, 2006). On a daily basis, Westernized dress was adopted to mobilize idealized identities and to avoid the mobilization of dreaded identities (Al-Dabbagh, 2006). Although, in some regard, these identities—such as a desire not to violate certain norms for bodily appearance—were similar to those enumerated by Guy and Banim’s (2000) British participants, others, such as concerns around modesty, reflected the participants’ immersion within the Saudi cultural context. As was evident in the data, participants varied in their views on modesty, with some holding tight to their Islamic values, regardless of context and audience, and others creatively adapting their looks depending upon the situation and the audience at hand (and the roles adopted for that audience). Indeed participants’ adeptness at adapting their presentations of the self for various audiences lends support for the assertion that, in a global, postmodern context characterized by exposure to diverse realities and possibilities for ways of being, the question becomes not so much “Who am I?,” but rather, “Who can I be with you?” (Cahill & Sandstrom, 2011, p. 182). Although some participants grappled with these questions and the demands of balancing diverse possibilities for presenting the self in stride, others experienced the incompatible cultural pulls on the self as stressful and were not able to reconcile how they should present the self through private sphere dress (Gergen, 2000, 2011; Zuhur, 2005).
Interestingly, although findings echo in many ways Gergen’s (2011) proposition that identity is not fixed but rather is constructed and reconstructed in accord with the various realities one faces, participants also spoke to the notion of expressing the “authentic” self as a component of their desired self, suggesting perhaps that some aspects of the self, are, in fact, “chronically accessible” and represent a “core” self (Markus & Nurius, 1986, p. 957). Of interest here is the recognition of this fact by participants as well as the value placed upon accessing and revealing this self to others through private sphere dress.
One limitation of this work is that the interviews were conducted in Arabic and were translated into English for analysis such that some subtle nuances in meaning may have been lost. The sample comprised Saudi women who had not lived abroad and who were residing in metropolitan areas, and thus findings yielded understanding about the private sphere dress experiences of women with these specific characteristics. In future work, it would be valuable to explore the private sphere dress practices of Saudi women who had lived abroad for extended periods of time and/or who were residing in rural areas of the country. Of interest would be whether, given the differing socializing factors at hand, these women would experience a “saturation of the self” similar to that described by participants in the present sample. Also of interest in future work would be a more in-depth exploration of women’s interactions with specific others and the role of those interactions in shaping the use of private sphere dress to construct and present the self. For instance, it would be interesting to consider the lived realities of women who were not married, as the present work focused exclusively upon the experiences of married women for whom interactions with spouses and in-laws were quite significant. Finally, because issues of social class emerged as so salient for the middle-class participants in the present study, it would be intriguing to explore how lower or upper class Saudi women might think about such issues as they construct and present the private sphere self through dress.
Footnotes
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge Dr. Mohammed Hirchi, Colorado State University, for his assistance with the translation of the interviews from Arabic to English.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.