Muslim Doors and the Spacing of Gender

It is often said that Muslims are very private people. An example of this, as well often pointed to, is that in the Muslim world houses are surrounded by walls. Being in Saudi I can attest to this: you will not find a house without walls here as long as it is a domestic structure (i.e. where women [and inevitbaly children] live).

Another angle to this is that, as every ex-pat who comes to Saudi for any length of time knows, there is a huge difference between the housing provided married people and that provided to single males. The housing provided to the hordes of single men from south Asia who come here to work in construction and as laborers is like a bunch of rabbit hutches. Sometimes there are dozen guys stuffed into a single room/barracks. These guys are bused around to the job sites and seen in the backs of huge trucks like cattle. The housing provided married people, often from places other than south Asia, is palatial by comparison.

I spent three months in a housing structure we like all seem to call "guantanomo bay." It was built in the 1960s or 70s for single foreign males working in the oil industry in this area. Then it might have been considered nice. It is not bad now either. It's just that it feels like a cross between the hotel Jack Nicholson's character's stayed in with his family in The Shining and an old abandoned 1970s Ramada Inn. The fact there is hardly anyone there, maybe one out of ten of the rooms in the four structures is occupied, and that the floors are hard, cold, dusty marble and this weird decorated concrete, adds to this ambience.

After my wife arrived in Saudi to join me at the end of the summer we moved into "family" housing. The place is four or five notches above Guantanamo Bay at the very least. One interesting thing about the place is the number of doors in it. The apartment only has four rooms: a large "family" room/sitting area, a kitchen with a laundry area, a bedroom and a bathroom. The thing is, there are ten doors in this little 35 X 20 ft structure (sorry, I think in feet but can do meters when I have to, i.e. not now). My wife pointed out to me that this is because the entire structure can be instantly converted/bifurcated into a space that dichotomizes the public and the private. There is a separate bathroom for times when men are present. There is a series of doors that allows the kitchen and master-bedroom bathroom to be accessible from the kitchen, like something out of the Tale of Genji. That makes ten doors in a structure that in my country would have about five. So, does the state pervade society here or does the private engulf everything in its wake? And is this not something Saudis are taught to do inside before they take it outdoors?