CAES Morocco: Leading Across Differences

  I feel that my time in Morocco challenged me to think beyond my initial perceptions of things and to approach each experience from a different perspective. Before this trip, I did not know that this country was a predominantly Islamic nation, but I did have previous conceptions about what an Islamic country might be like. Apart from the rules of modesty, I believed that women were seen as more like property, not given the same rights as men. The first day I landed in Morocco, and had the opportunity to walk around, I was with a small group of girls. As we walked around, we began to notice how many men lined the streets, occupied cafes, drove in their cars— we saw strikingly few women and began to feel somewhat uneasy. When we did see a few women, they were often accompanied by men, with a few exceptions of tourists, and we immediately began to draw conclusions about the country’s politics and values. We suspected that there were so few women because they were simply not allowed o...