RIYADH, 18 April 2003 — In Saudi Arabia, the proverbial ceiling faced by working women is brick rather than glass — but in some ways that makes it easier to tackle, women say.
“You can see it, you can talk about it, you can prove it is undermining you. Then you can find ways to go through it or around it,” said Sawsan Salman, head of the Saudi Society for Rehabilitation and Education — a charity for disabled children. “Eventually we are going to break it,” she told Reuters.
While critics focus on rules which stop women from driving or appearing unveiled in public, Sawsan is one of the many educated women who have been quietly chipping away at the social and cultural barriers which hold her back. This has enabled women to achieve things which were unheard of in the Kingdom 10 years ago — they have become bankers, business tycoons, architects, television presenters and Internet engineers.
In the field of medicine — which has always been more accessible to Saudi women — female doctors now head hospital departments, with male colleagues working under them. Successful women say much still needs to be done to help others overcome the disadvantages of strict social segregation and laws requiring them to have a male sponsor to set up a business. But they maintain the barriers are cultural, rather than religious, and will be eroded naturally as society develops.
The women are all committed Muslims and say that local tradition — not Islam — is the obstacle they face.
“I believe in my country, I have a positive outlook,” said Nadia Bakhurji, president of Riwaq of the Kingdom — an upmarket interior and architectural design company. “I feel we have to be patient, it takes time to establish a system that will facilitate things for women,” she said.
Nadia — who set up Riwaq with her father’s backing 14 years ago — said the main problem she faced in developing her firm came not from men but domestic banks, who had no interest in supporting small companies. But she acknowledges that the ban on socializing freely with men curbed her ability to network or do public relations work.
“For every three projects I had, my male competitor would probably have 10. But I’ve proved myself in a male-dominated society without having to mix — it’s just a bit more difficult.”
Lubna Olayan, chief executive officer of the Olayan Financing Company, said the government, and male colleagues, had been strong supporters in her climb to the top of the Saudi arm of a family-run global investment group.
“Saudi men are extremely polite and respectful. I think things are moving in the right direction, it’s a matter of pace. Of course the West expects people to move fast,” she said.
In a view echoed by other professional women, Lubna said that one of the main stumbling blocks to social change was the attitude of women who felt threatened by the process. “I think the government is encouraging change for women. A lot of the resistance is coming from women themselves, and the only way to unlock this is to educate women,” she added.
The Kingdom introduced a national education program for women in 1960. But only six percent of women in the overall population of 17 million are listed as employed, with most involved in teaching, nursing, medicine or charity work. However, women are quite involved in the economy. According to some reports, around 40 percent of private wealth and thousands of businesses are owned by women.
Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority is setting up a unit to help Saudi and foreign businesswomen invest in the Kingdom. And in another sign of innovation, firms which develop commercial Internet sites have been set up by women IT experts who have hired men to do their marketing.
“What we are fighting is the culture,” said Selwa Al-Hazzaa, a doctor who heads the ophthalmology unit at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. “My countrymen come to me and say this is the limit, don’t go beyond. Because I know it, I can work around it,” she said.
Selwa is one of three women advisers whom the country’s appointed, all-male advisory Shoura Council regularly consults.
Like many of her contemporaries, she was educated abroad, but returned home willingly. “Here, I am a pioneer. I can see the impact of what I do immediately,” she said.
Many women said they were dismayed at the Western media’s fixation with their dress and a ban on women driving.
“I love wearing the abaya, I think it’s a great convenience. It means that I can go out at a moment’s notice regardless of what I’m wearing,” said Mona Abu Sulayman, a presenter on “Kalam Nawam,” a popular women’s talk show on the Arabic network MBC.
Many women said they would not dream of driving at present — even if it was permitted — because society was not ready for it.
Many women pointed out that in some ways it was easier to be a girl in Saudi Arabia than a boy, because girls had more social outlets than their brothers, who generally stop going out with their mothers when they turn nine.
“People try to make us more unique than we actually are. We are not Martians,” said Heidi Alaskary, a speech therapist who is half American. “I don’t think women in Saudi Arabia are different from any elsewhere in the world.”
