“MANY a housewife staring at the back of her husband's newspaper, or listening to his breathing in bed is lonelier than any spinster in a rented room,” says Germaine Greer in "The Female Eunuch, Love: Security.” The spinster has been as comedic plot device in the film industries, both Egyptian and American, for years since their golden years. The actresses portraying these characters played the older, less attractive sister or neighbour, and her story was only used as a comic relief a marginal side-story to the main plot. The poster child of the spinsters was Zeinat Sedki in the 1940 and 1950's. The word “spinster,” or “old maid” or Aanis in Arabic, conjures up the mental image of a childless, frumpy, middle-aged woman who is somewhat depressed and is longing to be like other "normal" women. She is usually alone, or living with an extended family often her mother, or a sick relative who she takes care of. She is considered a social outcast living in the shadow of others. She makes those around her uncomfortable. The word Aanis is defined in two primary ways in the Arabic dictionaries, none of which are especially relevant to the way it is socially defined in Egypt today. One of the definitions of the word is a strong female camel, though this is very archaic. The other is simply an unmarried woman of middle years, but it is the strong cultural image which has been built up upon this term which is important here. Unlike the first definition, a spinster is not seen as strong, otherwise people wouldn't have pity on her. In the popular TV show “Sex and the City”, this social stereotype is phrased by one of the characters as, “Why do we get stuck with old maid and spinster and men get to be bachelors and playboys?” The social dynamics of traditional societies have created the image that an unmarried woman is an incomplete person, and women have been conditioned to believe that if they pass a certain age, they come to fit in that category, even though as the times have changed, the age for marriage has gotten higher. Still, the usual practice is that an unmarried woman will be called spinster eventually. Traditional cultures have raised generations of women to believe that their truest, most important role in society is to get married and have children. Anything short of this role was considered abnormal, unfulfilling, and suspect. In the film Now, Voyager, (1942), Bette Davis plays the role of Charlotte Vale, the troubled, unmarried daughter of a domineering mother from an apparently affluent upper-class family. When Charlotte makes her initial appearance, the audience already has a pretty good idea of who and what she is at first glance. She fits the classic stereotyped image of a spinster, and we have compartmentalised her as such in our minds before she even has a chance to speak her first line. Charlotte is dressed in a drab, ill-fitting dress, her hair is pulled back in a bun; she wears old-fashioned, wire-framed spectacles. Her presence screams “spinster”: her demeanour seems mousy, her eyes are cast down, and she is constantly wringing her hands as if she is uncomfortable with herself. Obviously, there is something abnormal about her entire demeanour. In Egyptian cinema, in the roles of Zeinat Sedki, the actress was playing the role in a comedic way, because the traditional society would have been more than uncomfortable if they saw her play it in a serious way. The comedy alleviates what is the apparent social “tragedy” of her status. A lot of people blame the occurrence of unmarried women on the social and economical conditions they face; it's hard for them to get married due to expenses married people need. What is consistently ignored or at least not spoken of is that it's hard to get married in Egypt today for anyone who's not wealthy, male or female. The many problems this situation creates for men is another huge problem in itself. But what about those who choose to be single, or refuse to settle; are they abnormal? This is the story of Mona Ragab (not her actual name). She is in her early 30's, comes from a very well-to-do family, is beautiful, very well educated, and could have her pick of any man if she so chose to, but she doesn't. "Yes, I get it; I'm over 30,” she says. “By now, I should have been married with children, most of my friends are married with kids, and everywhere I go someone is telling me about some great bachelor who is looking for a wife, but is that what am I supposed to do? Just through these match ups?" Mona is even seeing the trend in those men she is being “offered to” everywhere to change a bit. First they were bachelors, now they are divorced or widowed; she has grown older and may not seem like a “hot property” anymore. The story of Mona is not an unusual one at all; in the recent years, her “type of woman” has become a majority, but in a traditional society, this is not acceptable. People will not leave it be, but will actively not make it seem acceptable for her by the ways that they look and whisper, “Oh look, where is her husband?” In Western society, the single woman is still seen an old maid by many after a certain age, but the media don't tend to shun single women, as they do in Egypt, especially after shows and movies like Sex and the City. There is often the perception however, that an unmarried woman must either be too much obsessed with her career or be too neurotic to hold on to a man which is a different kind of stigma, and one which the media does play into. Single careerminded women are portrayed as emasculating ice queens, and the other women must just be so needy that they drive men away even some of the characters in Sex and the City occasionally play into these stereotypes, but at the same time are at least moving towards a more positive evolution of the character. There is something of an evolution of this character happening in American cinema, but not in Egyptian society. Even if the story is trying to portray the unmarried woman as a strong woman, at the end of the story they get married. In the film La'abet El-Hobb (Love Game) (2006), the character ofLeila, played by Hind Sabri, is single independent woman who enjoys her single life, but has to put up with people's gossip, especially from her nosey doorman. Her happy single life turns miserable when she can't be with the recently divorced Essam, played by Khaled Abul Naga, and her life is only happy again when he runs back to her at the end of the film.Whether Leila finding love with Essam is conforming or otherwise is not the point; she might have really wanted to be with him and just not be single anymore. What's sad about the evolution of the spinster character in Egyptian cinema is that she went from being comical to bitter. There is no sense of celebration at all, and that's not because there are not any happy, single, unmarried women in their 30's or even 40's, but rather because of how society views them. Like most films, they only portray them from a collectivist traditional point of view with no individualism.
