The Women's Baths

The Women’s Baths

The short story, The Women’s Baths, by Ulfat al Idlibi is a respected piece of writing in the Middle East which demonstrates the importance of women’s public bathing. It carries a religious connotation, which suggests that cleansing is also a part of religion. According to the Prophet Muhammad, ablution is “the half faith and the key to prayer,” even though public bathing is not performed for the purpose of prayer, it is still a form of cleansing that many women enjoy, where they would socialize and feel a sense of purity after each bath. In addition, this story also relates to the social change towards public bathing in the Middle East. The grandma, who is constantly criticized by her family that she still goes to the public baths, shows it is an older tradition that the younger generation has evolved from. Also, the fact that nobody from her family goes with her, except the maids, suggests that public bathing is no longer considered the norm in the Middle East, since most people have baths in their homes. However, the grandma’s reason to go to these public baths is not just because of faith and tradition but also because she feels a sense of connection with all the other women, where they would socialize and feel part of the community.

The narrator of the story, who is a girl probably in her teens, since she was not married, decides to go with her grandma for first time to the public baths. Since she has never been there before, she describes everything she observes in such detail, that it makes the readers feels as if they are also there experiencing what she is for the first time. There are a lot of contrasting images found in the story; the way the baths looked, what the women wore and how they behaved. For example, Umm Abdu, the bath attendant, “...had penciled eyebrows, eyes were painted with kohl and was dressed very neatly. She had adorned her hair with two roses and a spring of jasmine. She was very voluble, and like a...