RIYADH, 2 June 2003 — On my way home from work, I was listening to an MBC call-in program about rising unemployment in Saudi Arabia. As usual, I was depressed by the statistics and even more depressed by the lack of feasible solutions being suggested. For example one caller suggested cutting salaries by 50 percent and doubling the number of employees. While realizing the impracticality of the suggestion, my heart went out to the young man and I remembered every women who had come to my office asking for any kind of job for almost any salary. In general, unemployment is a big problem for both sexes in our society and I think it is worse for women. Saudi women are 51 percent of the population but barely 7 percent of the work force. The proverb tells us that recognizing the problem is half the solution. So what is the problem? Saudi women have limited career opportunities; education and medicine (whether as an administrator, teacher, secretary, doctor, pharmacist, or nurse etc.) are basically the only options for women in Saudi Arabia.
The reason? Well, some will blame it on the country’s sexual segregation; others will say it is due to the increase of the Saudi population and the country’s inability to provide jobs for so many. Much has been said and much more will surely be said. Some seem to think that “mixing” the sexes will solve all our problems, unemployment included; others think that we are fine so long as “our women” are not allowed to be “sinfully amongst men”.
Controversy seems to be very common in my country but I am not here to promote either side. Being a Saudi woman, from Najd — perhaps the Kingdom’s most conservative region — I realize how difficult it would be for people here to simply drop all their ideas and opinions and accept the idea of their sisters, wives, and daughters working in “mixed” environments. At the same time, I know that ignoring the problem will not make it go away. Something must be done and it is up to us — both Saudi people and government, working hand in hand — to submit, promote and employ different suggestions.
Over the past few years as an educator at university level, I have seen many intelligent and promising young women with a variety of talents. These are women who have much more to give than society will allow them to. Working on extracurricular activities, for example, I have come across young women with incredible artistic, decorating, organizational, presenting, marketing, and even electrical engineering skills and none have received education in those fields. The unfortunate fact is that the only educational opportunities open to women are limited to certain fields — fields that prepare them for jobs that they will probably never be able to fill.
Can’t we make use of all this talent? An even more important question is whether we are in need of what these young women have to offer. In fact, as a segregated society, we need women engineers, interior decorators, beauticians, seamstresses, lawyers, marketing and sales women, business managers, etc. For example, instead of waiting for the “male staff” — usually foreigners — to come in the afternoons and repair whatever electrical problem a girls’ school may have, why not educate and hire Saudi women to do that job? Instead of having so many foreign women working in the thousands of beauty salons all over the Kingdom, why not provide an accredited academy to train Saudi women as beauticians?
Instead of having women go to male lawyers to understand and execute their legal rights, why not have women lawyers? Instead of having males marketing to females, why not educate more women to be qualified marketing and saleswomen?
More fields have to be opened to Saudi women. Educators and officials must begin thinking about how to provide more educational opportunities for women which in turn will provide more occupational opportunities for them. Providing more jobs for women as teachers by decreasing their salaries and sending them to distant and remote villages is a poor pacifier — and one that will not work for long. Young women who are fortunate enough to go to college, are beginning to dread graduation for fear of being unemployed. To solve the problem, we see more and more Saudi women turning to owning and running their own businesses — but what about the talented majority who cannot afford to do so? We, as a country, need these talents — perhaps as much as these young women need the jobs. Why let them go to waste?
