The Netflix Teen Drama That Goes Deeper Into the Arab Patriarchy
“AlRawabi School for Girls,” a series set in Jordan, is bold in its willingness to depict young women weaponizing patriarchal violence against one another, to ultimately chilling ends.
via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-netflix-teen-drama-that-goes-deeper-into-the-arab-patriarchy
As part of her revenge plot, Mariam creates a fake Facebook account and messages Ruqayya, pretending to be a male admirer. The two of them message back and forth for days, before the boy asks Ruqayya to send him a photograph of herself with her hair uncovered. She receives the request while at a school event, and goes into a bathroom stall to take the picture, but eventually demurs. “Sorry I can’t,” she writes, worried about revealing herself to a stranger. He replies, “I admire you even more for saying no to what feels wrong,” which flatters her into sending him the photograph after all.