Adventures in People Watching (with Statistics)

I've written about my fascination with women's clothing in this region before, but today I took that to a new level. I set out for the mall this morning with the intention of tallying the number of women I saw dressed in a variety of ways. I've estimated before that I thought about 60% of women covered their hair in public here. I wanted to see how my perception stood against more concrete numbers.*

Trying to ignore the heat, I walked over to the mall. Once there, I ordered a latte at Starbucks and found a table with a decent** view of the mall entrance. I've actually wanted to conduct this experiment since the first time I came out to Dubai. But on that trip, I was too overwhelmed to consider it. Since then, I've been a little nervous about recording these observations. But I decided the worst that might happen is that I'd be asked to stop, so I plunged in.

I thought it would be easiest to divide my count into two broad categories - those who were covering their hair and those who were not. Within each category, I had a few subcategories. For those who were covering their hair, I divided them into (1) those who were completely covered, including those with only eyes visible; (2) those wearing the typical local dress - an abaya and headscarf, with faces showing; (3) those wearing a headscarf and modest western dress; and (4) those wearing another "national costume." For those women not wearing a hijab, I made several categories going from the most modest (covering knees, elbows, and everything between) to the least (showing arms, shoulders, and knees). I also made separate note of anyone wearing leggings without a dress/shirt reaching the top of the knees, for...*reasons.

Over 50 minutes, starting just after 11 and continuing until noon, I took note of 366 women entering or passing me in the mall. Of them, 160 wore a hijab and modest clothing - 44%. Another 95 wore modest clothing covering their knees, shoulders, elbows and everything in between - 26%. An additional 88 had only their elbows showing - 24%. I saw only 3 women wearing leggings without a top that reached the knee - 0.82%.

Of those wearing a hijab, the overwhelming majority wore what I think of as "local" attire - an abaya and a headscarf that leaves their full face showing. Next most common was modest western attire. I'm sure I could have divided this into more categories, but I stuck with the things I could determine quickly and easily.

For the last 30 minutes, I also made note of those women who were not wearing a hijab but wore or carried a scarf large enough for such a purpose. Of the 112 women who entered, 8 of them (7.14%) had a scarf with them. I wish I had tracked this the entire time.

Because I made minor changes to my tracking, I made a second chart for my tallies after 11:30 AM. This lead me to another interesting observation. Before 11:30, 36% of the women I saw were wearing a hijab. After 11:30, 49% of the women I saw were wearing a hijab. I would like to track another day to see if this trend holds. Either way, it was not quite the 60% I had estimated.

*I also may have been motivated by an "argument" that Craig and I had, yesterday, over whether it was appropriate for me to go out in leggings.

**If I repeat this experiment, I might choose a different location. I was not able to see the entire entrance and my view was hindered by an enormous column.