I can’t think of another country in the world where the front page of a national newspaper could carry a headline like the one gracing the Arab News last week: ‘Women Made to Sit With Water Tanker Drivers’.
The narrative told the sorry tale of how the severe water shortage in Jeddah had set the stage for the unlikely scenario of women cloaked from head to toe in black, hitching up their abayas and clambering into the passenger seats of trucks to prevent them from being hijacked by water-deprived citizens.
It not only displayed the incredible lack of strategic planning vis-a-vis this essential commodity, (we do live in the middle of a desert in case the authorities didn’t notice) but also the well-known fact that even in matters of water distribution there exists an invisible pecking order that we must implicitly abide by. The cups of those who can offer kickbacks and afford corruption overflow whilst the rest of the population must sadly remain thirsty. It would be rational to assume that, prior to this incident, no one here could have foreseen women getting into the passenger seats of cars driven by men who were not their legal guardians, leave alone into the cabins of industrial trucks, without being targeted by the religious police or, at the very least, severely chastised and rebuked by the male members of their families. But that’s what necessity does. It dictates situations otherwise seemingly unimaginable.
And where were all the men who are supposed to be the self-imposed guardians and protectors of these women? Why weren’t they the ones taking it upon themselves to provide water for their households? Isn’t it a tad ironic that so many of them insist on exercising their authority over their womenfolk when it comes to issues of education, employment et al but when it comes to the boring and monotonous chore of queuing up for water, they give them license to fend for themselves? The whole state of affairs was summed up very poignantly by an elderly Saudi woman, Umm Fatmah who said, and I quote, “There are no more men — how can there be when I’m here at my age and my daughter is sitting beside a stranger alone?” It seems therefore, that when it comes to matters that suit their convenience men are perfectly OK with women behaving proactively. So long as men here are in the driving seat, both literally and figuratively, they don’t have a problem.
I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine who is destined to leave the Kingdom for good. I found it hard to understand her motivation considering that she had been the director of an important government agency, is highly educated and could have a very bright future here.
“Why,” I asked with genuine curiosity, “would you want to leave?”
“Because,” she said plaintively, “I am too tired of the fact that even though I am the one supporting the entire household I am just not in control of things.”
“But you make all the important decisions,” I remarked.
“Well, even though I make choices, I cannot really make decisions. My brothers contribute nothing financially to this house, not even a penny, and yet every so-called ‘decision’ I would like to have the freedom to make has to be implemented by them. Even though I was in charge of making strategic plans for the country, I cannot truly propose to do anything for myself. As a woman I can’t travel without their permission. I can’t even rent a place. When my father was alive he made sure that things were done immediately, but now every time I need something from my brothers I have to think ten times before I ask. They behave as if they are doing me the biggest favor in the world. I am tired of begging them for petty little things and it creates so much unpleasantness having to nag away at them.
And now that I have quit my job and want to go into business, at every step of the way I have to have a male representative to convey what I am perfectly proficient of expressing myself. I will be totally reliant on someone who has neither the competence nor the education to understand the intricacies of what I do, but because of his gender is qualified to stand in a line that I am excluded from. What, as an educated individual, could be more frustrating than that?”
What indeed? No doubt, there has been significant progress made with regards to women’s issues and I sincerely believe that under our current leadership this noble and necessary initiative will gain momentum as time goes by.
However, we still have an awfully long way to go. I have said it before and I will say it again. I strongly believe that Saudi women are as professional and capable as their male counterparts, if not more so. It would therefore be quite encouraging to increase their participation in the decision-making processes that affect their lives and their future.
A truly novel approach might be to ask women directly what they want instead of asking the men of this country what they think their women want. It may come as a surprise to learn that queuing up for tankers at the Jeddah Water Administration is not top of their wish list.
