Well behaved women never made history

Last summer was my last hurrah in Pittsburgh with friends before I was to move over here to Qatar. One of those weekends I decided to take off for Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia with two of my friends, Georgia and Stef. We did a lot of bike riding, we went to the beach, we rode up to Ocean City, MD to eat dinner one night, and camped on the island. Stef was, and as far as I know still is, obsessed with the jolly roger, so we made shirts in Ocean City with the Jolly Roger on the front and the quote "well behaved women never make history" on the back. It's one of my favorite shirts.

I've hesitated to wear it here because I didn't know what the reaction would be to it and didn't want to bring unwanted attention to myself in public places. However, I wore it (not thinking about the quote) today to the grocery store and I got a response I would have never imagine.

On the way into the mall, I ran into somebody I knew. He was with his wife and new baby, the other two I had never met before. I said "hi" and went on my merry way. As I was coming out of the store, I ran into the young family again. Before getting into my car, the father said to me that his wife, who happened to be a conservative muslim wearing full abaya/sheila/niqab, loved the quote on the back of my tshirt. Two thought processes raced through my mind:

1) I was shocked to hear that a conservative muslim woman would resonate with the quote on my shirt that was basically about not being told what to do.

2) My shock instantly turned to shame that I would think a muslim woman could never possibly agree like, much less agree with my shirt.

Although seemingly small and insignificant, this instance proved several things to me. Not only do I continually learn new things about people in this culture, but my shock-turned-to-shame shows me just how many stereotypes I still have in my head about people different from myself. Contrary to what modern media might have us think, not all muslim women are so oppressed that they couldn't resonate with a quote about going against the grain and being a woman of strong character, much less say something to their husbands about it.