Indiviuality for Women

Before reading "Baghdad Without A Map", I was unaware of many Middle Eastern customs that I have now read about but I was aware of the unjust lifes that women lived in the Middle Eastern world. In the Middle East, women must always be hidden. Marriage is not a choice, freedom of speech is unthinkable, abstinence is unnegociable, all in all their entire life is restricted. "Which form in this sea of black hoods was my wife?" (pg. 135) I do not see what role women actually play in Middle Eastern society. If a women is completey hidden from the world what good can she do? American women have every freedom that men are entitled too. We are more than priveleged and most importantly we are different people. I feel as though this different custom of the Middle East changes a women into "the women." There is no room for indiviuality. In America we identify ourselves through our personality, the certain indiviualism that we possess. What good is life without that? How can a women possibly be happy when she is shielded from living her entire life? No I am not from the Middle East and do not fully understand this background but I cannot come to an agreement for the deprived lives the women of the Middle East live.