The story recently published in Arab News and other newspapers in the Kingdom about the TV presenter who was beaten by her husband elicited many angry cries. A group from the Human Rights Commission visited the presenter and said they were following the case. The visit was a positive step and shows that perhaps the Commission will take a more active role in dealing with such social problems. Their attempt to find reasons and excuses for the man’s barbaric behavior, however, is not really what we expect of this body or of what it was established to do. That the man had problems is obvious; that the problems justify or excuse his barbaric behavior is absolutely wrong. Nothing could do that. What matters for many of us is that such incidents do not become regular fare in our newspapers which cater to local tastes for sensational items.
Yet leaving all that aside, there is something more basic that has to be addressed. This particular woman, because she is a well-known TV presenter, got the attention of the media and everybody else. What about the hundreds of women who do not have ready access to those channels? What about the hundreds of women who are abused by husbands, fathers and brothers and who are unable to go public with the information? Somehow in our culture we let men get away with abuse — verbal, physical and economic. Women are always advised to be patient.
Under the pretext of protecting women, some men deny a woman’s right to say No, to have an independent personality and opinion and decide what is best for her. How many women have to live with husbands who they do not love just because it is their duty to be good wives? How many have had to give up their children after divorce because men decided not to allow them to see their mother? How many have to give their salaries or other assets to their husbands in order to keep peace at their homes? How many have to wait for their male relatives’ approval to get an ID, for example, let alone a passport? If we keep listing all the examples of frustration and ‘abuse’ women endure, we can fill many pages.
To be fair, it is not always the man’s fault. It is society’s view that a woman must be guided and led all the time and that she should not and cannot be on her own. This view, I am sorry to say, is supported by women themselves. In an e-mail circulated last month, a Saudi woman wrote an open letter to the Crown Prince, asking him to ignore calls to give women a greater role or at least look into the problems faced by women in this country.
She said that women are basically inferior to men and that therefore they should not seek additional opportunities and rights.
To her, women are wrong if they complain of problems. Some will say that the writer of the letter is only speaking for herself but I have to say that there are those among us who do refuse any change.
They think that women are being absurd and simply want to defy society. A mother of two recently said to me that the people who are talking about change are only sugarcoating poisoned ideas. She said: “We do not need change. Our fathers and their fathers lived like this and they were happy. The calls for change are only a reflection of Western pressure on us to leave our culture behind.”
Another woman answered her by saying that change was the norm in life and if we fail to accept it or work it in order to turn it to our best advantage, we would be forced to face it later on. Stagnation is not the answer. Surely that is the main point; change has to come — and it will whether we like it or not.
It would be far better if we initiated change ourselves in our own circles and let it ripple out from there.
