A Woman is No Man

What happens between a husband and wife must stay between them. Always. No matter what.

Fareeda knew that no matter what any woman said, culture could not be escaped. Even if it meant tragedy.

She pressed her fingers against her temples.

October 17, 1997—Isra Ra’ad, twenty-five-year-old mother of four, was found beaten to death in Bay Ridge late Wednesday night.

e crumpled the letter,

had always been this way, Fareeda thought. It might not be fair, but she didn’t make the rules. It was just the way it was

Surely she was the victim of an oppressive culture, or the enforcer of a barbaric tradition.

A woman is not a man.”

Each time Fareeda had realized that no marriage would follow, that there was no naseeb, no destiny, she had smacked her own face with open palms and wept violently, the sort of dramatic performance she often used to pressure Deya and her sisters to obey her.

The permits were required at each of the hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks Israel had constructed on Palestinian land, restricting travel between, and sometimes within, their own cities and towns.