The King Abdullah Scholarship Program has opened many doors for Saudi women, as they attend universities for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate degrees that promise them a better future. It’s a program that has benefited Saudi society enormously for more than a decade.

The number of women returning from abroad has greatly contributed to the economy of the country. I have no doubt that the thousands of highly educated women entering the workplace will have a significant impact on Saudi Arabia currently facing several challenges.

Despite these successes, Saudi society in many ways has lagged behind in maintaining the same timeline as the scholarship program. While Saudi women are leaving the Kingdom for a western education by the thousands, many families have difficulty accepting the New World Order.

A 33-year-old Saudi woman is currently attending a western university far from her home in the northern part of the Kingdom. She possesses a master’s degree in a highly-valued field and is now studying for her doctorate degree. A doctorate degree will virtually guarantee her a job that will pay enough to help support her mother and seven sisters. Her mother one of four wives to her father, but who has long been abandoned her. The student has several brothers who have done little to support their mother as well.

This young woman is married. Her husband, while continuing to work in Saudi Arabia, has given his wife permission — as her mahram — to study for her doctorate in the West. In Saudi culture a wife is answerable only to her husband, although she is expected to seek consul from her father on important aspects of her life. Brothers, unless they are the woman’s legal mahram, have no say at all in what their sister does with her time or money.

In the case of this Saudi woman, at least two of her brothers have waged a campaign to find a way to lure their sister back to Saudi Arabia and put an end to her postgraduate studies. The reason for this conspiracy is the most basic of all human emotions: They are jealous of their sister’s success and her life outside Saudi Arabia.

They talk among themselves. Their conversations have been captured on WhatsApp because one brother, alarmed at the behavior of his family, forwarded copies of the texts to his sister. The brothers make up stories about their sister’s morality, speculate on what she does with her time and have convinced themselves that she is really on an extended holiday with no intention of obtaining a degree.

They are pressuring her father to persuade the husband to call his wife home. The brothers prefer to concoct an emergency to bring her home and then force her to remain once she arrives in the country. This woman is so overwhelmed with fear that she is unable to study and is struggling with her research in her field of experience. She is so afraid of what might happen to her that she is often ill and unable to attend the university or to meet with her supervisor.

Critics often claim that the Saudi government is primitive with a backward, oppressive attitude toward women. But in many areas the Saudi government has been remarkably progressive in its treatment of women and the King Abdullah Scholarship Program is perhaps the best example. Saudi Arabia’s critics have failed to appreciate just how much the program has advanced the cause of Saudi women and elevated their place in society.

Yet what is holding back progress are families like this of the female student harassed and abused from afar for wanting a better life herself and her mother. Not all Saudi families are like this, but if one wants to examine a society that has yet to realize its potential because of male entitlement, Saudi Arabia is a good place to start. As a holder of a doctorate degree I never experienced anything but the greatest support from my parents and my brothers and sisters while I was away for five years. But many young women can't claim such a life.

Idle, undereducated Saudi men who see the control of their families slipping from their hands will forever cast a dark shadow on our society. The government can only do so much.