How Others See Us

While in Morocco I've had the opportunity of living with another Moroccan student, Nouha. She had studied in the US last semester so she told me about her expectations of America before and after her trip. Nouha told me she expected college students to be partying every night, similarly to how it is in movies. She was very surprised to find that not everyone goes out, or even throws parties like the ones on TV. She also said that she thought it was interesting how families are often too busy to have sit-down meals. In Morocco, meals are shared with all the family and there are many courses. She said that she did not expect the lifestyle to be so fast paced.

I was also interested in getting a male perspective of America because the portrayal of women in Moroccan and American culture and media are very different. I decided to ask one of my classmates what they thought of America. He also brought up party culture, and said that he hoped the girls were similar to the ones in music videos from American artists. I attempted to explain that a small amount of girls are like this at all. It was interesting to hear something like this because Moroccan culture is very conservative; I was surprised they would want to be around girls like that.

Even more, he was surprised that I was not interested to go to a party with him sometime. From my experiences here, guys are mostly respectful of women but it depends on the context. A good number of people believe in the stereotype that Americans are sleazy or party all the time and try to take advantage of it. Sadly, some of the other American students are reinforcing some of the stereotypes about drinking; which makes it difficult to convince people that it is not so common.