In Saudi Arabia the government has never been the pivot for social relationships nor of civil society’s authority over its members. It instead plays the role of intermediary between loyalty to the traditional authority and broad loyalty to the Islamic Ummah. A close look at history shows that the Arab woman is less encumbered than her Saudi counterpart. The geographic nature of this region, its political and economic volatility added to social roadblocks have all served to form the Saudi woman’s personality. They have trapped her in a traditional role preventing her from effective participation in society.
From a philosophical and pragmatic perspective, despite the level of education that Saudi women have achieved, their level of awareness in its modern and developed meaning is quite low. Their job opportunities have been confined to limited participation in teaching and nursing positions. Moreover society agreed to these limits so that the tendency toward superficial compensation would continue with no notable efforts to change. On the one hand, the state does not want to agitate the conservative forces in the country which regard the rights of women as being solely ones of home and children and on the other hand, it does not want to call upon society to raise women’s awareness. Why open eyes that have for decades been tightly shut?
Obviously the nature of a fundamentally “male society” and the vicious permutations of tradition and blood relationships prevented any discussion of increased awareness for women. Because of the cultural ambiguity between Islam and customs, “historical discontinuance” has been the lot of the Saudi woman. Nevertheless from the realities of this progressive era and the new economic and political conditions, the realization has begun to spread that belittling the role of women in society’s move toward progress must be reviewed.
It has become clear that continuing to marginalize that element of society presents a distorted image of the prevailing political situation aside from the tide of human desertification and its effect on women as human beings. They continue to live a contradiction between rights that they know exist on paper but which have not been realized in fact. It is from this standpoint that demands have been made to adjust priorities and build bridges so that women’s voices can be heard, their work, their concerns and their rights addressed in a manner that does not burden society or state. It would be utterly naive and ignorant of the challenge in all its dimensions to assume that women can make the leap from being a marginalized and weak element into a strong one in a short period of time. The main authority belongs to men and it is not easily relinquished in answer to reform whose necessity they may not perceive.
In order for fairness to be applied here we must clarify women’s position. In that regard, it is perhaps astonishing to know that this exclusion has sometimes been women’s choosing and with their approval. Such women may read this article and wonder: What is this change they talk about? Who has called for it?
Despite the existence of a group that has become used to submissiveness, there are in contrast women whose knowledge, resolve and wisdom are no less than that of men — Saudi women who will never consent for their concerns to be reduced to the “abaya” or to driving cars or to unveiling their faces. They will never agree to the use of religion to propagate ideas that have nothing to do with religion or to judicial opinions that aim to keep the status quo so that any woman who goes against such opinions would be considered “rogue” and if she abides by them she is “backward” in terms of modern society.
In any case, these are just some of the challenges that will confront women’s attempts to progress. There will be other frustrations especially when comparing the situation with other countries. It is unwise for the Saudi woman to demand to jump over the hurdle that is the gap between a Muslim society that has lived shackled with religious intolerance and its legacy and women whose societies have not been constrained by such extremism; societies that lived under occupation that left behind the legacy of a foreign culture, which in turn has been interwoven into the very fabric of their being.
Saudi women now find themselves wondering if their ambitions are about to be realized or will the realization be limited to some symbolic gesture? The reality is as some enlightened people have seen that Saudi women have not reached a stage where they have personal, ideological and financial security whether within their family circle or within their country. At home she finds no one to support her, whether father, husband or even brother. On the state level even more frustrations exist — legal hindrances and lack of procedural flexibility, the lack of an independent channel that allows women to follow-up their cases themselves in addition to educational obstacles resulting from teaching methods and the lack of administrative, technical, sports and training skills within the curriculum.
The National Dialogue that took place in Makkah last December included women though they were not representative of all classes within society and we do have reservations at the mechanism of a dialogue that took place in utter seclusion as if it were a war council. If we then consider that the next national dialogue which will be held in Madinah will focus on the issue of women, we see that we are facing a strategy that is concerned with women and their rights as much as women themselves are.
Islam is immutable and unshakable on certain matters and as such these are not open to negotiation, as Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, said — aside from that, we can debate and challenge and take what is of benefit to us and our society — even if it is imported.
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(Suraya Al-Shehry is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)
