Female Representations in "Halfaouine"

         In the film, Halfaouine, the female body was very important for the main character’s coming of age. There were many scenes from the perspective of the young boy, Noura, of women in the bathhouse. Dr. Robert Lang even spoke about how these scenes of nude women in the bathhouse would have been considered gratuitous if they weren’t so important to Noura’s developing sexulality throughout the film. Dr. Lang’s lecture had a lot to do with the male perspective of the film, which makes sense considering that the Tunisia depicted in the film was patriarchal. 
        Yet I couldn’t help but think of all of the various films I have seen that revolved around a boy becoming a man and finding his sexuality through a woman’s naked body. But what about girls? There is hardly ever talk of women coming into their sexuality. Where is a girl supposed to look to find her sexuality? 
Although Halfaouine addresses the police state of Tunisia, using Noura and his experiences as  an allegory of the changing country, I couldn’t help but feel that female sexuality was overlooked. It seems that in these movies where women’s bodies are objects or catalysts for an essential development in a man’s sexuality, there is an implication that women’s sexuality is always there, just latent, waiting for a man. There are a few instances of women who took charge of their own lives, such as Noura’s divorced aunt. But this does not equal the mounting number of women who were simply looked at with lascivious eyes by the men in the film.
This isn’t unlike the representation of women in American media. Women are often depicted as being constantly sexually aroused, just waiting for a man to “release” them. The representation in Halfaouine isn’t as vulgar as American media, but the women are mostly portrayed as objects.