Macho Up & Drive Like a Man!
I recite a prayer three times every time I get behind the steering wheel of my car. Even though I rarely drive on highways, I find myself thrown in the chaos of any and every road.
I began to notice a pattern, where a man was almost always the source of every aggressive encounter.
Even in the passenger’s seat, I regularly see episodes of such forcefulness on the road.
Whether I’m in a taxi in Beirut or next to a friend in Cairo, there is something similar in both locations.
I see force in the oter driver’s eyes, fully focused on his objective, straight-ahead, despite the dozen cars swerving around him.
I see force in the driver’s slightly opened mouth, as his friend looked in my direction and spat out some misogynistic catcall or the other.
I see force in his late but powerful stomp on the brakes – realizing that I can also be forceful inside my petite car.
Every day is a fight on the roads – a joust for power and a battle of masculinity.
What becomes of his manhood if he doesn’t make that turn before I do, or fails to cross the intersection before anyone else has the chance to?
Driving is just another act that has come to define gender. How fast you drive, how quickly you swerve, and whether you let pedestrians jaywalk or not. Our method of driving has become another determinant of how masculine or how feminine we are.
In a patriarchal society like Egypt, the road has transformed into an arena where men can show off just how macho they are; which is generally characterized by speed, stubbornness, and inconsideration. The thicker your skin is as a driver, the more masculine you are, or so it seems.
This toxic masculinity transforms the car into a tank – a big, tough, macho weapon of intimidation. Massive trucks and four-by-fours only amplify the ammunition.
Such gender roles also assert themselves the other way around, forcing women to stay calm and gentle as they make their way down the road. If a woman is too aggressive when driving, she is chastised for being too manly. If she is too gentle or slow, she is reprimanded for being driven by her emotions.
“Women don’t know how to drive,” is a common phrase I hear almost daily, predominately by men.
Is such an opinion based on the male definition of a good driver that is based on a high level of assertiveness and aggression?
What is truly interesting is that this road warfare is not restricted to a male versus female front, as it became clearer to me that men on the road compete with each other.
“I know you don’t like it when I’m aggressive behind the wheel, but that’s how they all are,” my driver once expressed to me in regards to male drivers in Egypt.
This hostility on the road was more evident to me in Beirut, where drivers dashed throughout the narrow roads with no consideration of others.
I attribute this to my observations that identify the larger and more fragile Lebanese male ego, which alongside national confidence heightens the need to assert their manhood in this particular manner.
It is nevertheless important to realize that men may make up the majority of the driving demographic, and that may explain why many of the agents behind such hostile encounters are men.
Nonetheless, through a gender paradigm we can frame this issue as one of heteronormativity where the man is expected to be aggressive, even when behind a steering wheel.
This raises the question of whether such restrictive and shallow gender roles forcemany men to assert their masculinity through driving.
The argument I make here is not that “Egyptian drivers are better” nor is it a “women drive better than men” one. It is simply a call to recognize the dangerous and assertive driving patterns, that emerge from a complex set of factors contributing to the definition of what it means to be a man.
It is an attempt to highlight how we have transformed our system of transportation into a battlefield.
Malak Sekaly
Caravan Columnist
