Women in Saudi Arabia: Change from Within

Our discussion this month (as is often the case) took us to some unexpected places, and expanded our knowledge of women's rights issues.

A key theme this time was complexity.

Women's issues in Saudi Arabia are nothing if not complex.

In the middle of this complexity is the undeniable fact: male guardianship laws and sex segregation in Saudi Arabia are so extreme that women face massive insecurity, lack personal autonomy and experience violations of even the most basic human rights. They are Perpetual Minors in the eyes of the law.

Qanta Ahmed, the author of In the Land of Invisible Women (a moderate Muslim and a British-born, American-trained doctor of Pakistani descent) was a particularly helpful guide through some of this complexity. This is because she was well-positioned to confront a lot of this complexity in a very personal way-she was both an outsider (a foreigner, with no real knowledge of Wahhabism) and an insider (a Muslim, highly educated, a doctor) in the relatively elite social context of the military hospital ICU where she worked.

Imprisonment and Empowerment
One of the most contested and complex issues is obviously the (often violently enforced) extensive covering of women in public. Even before the author, Qanta, lands in Saudi Arabia, she is worried about the appropriateness of her clothing. The first thing that she does after settling in her apartment is to go shopping for an abbaya with her secretary. Qanta passionately declares:
"... polyester imprisonment by compulsion is ungodly and (like the fiber) distinctly man-made."

But as soon as she puts the abbaya on, Qanta also recognizes the safety and empowerment that it lends her as a woman who must navigate exceptionally predatory and aggressive male-dominated public space. For a beautifully crafted personal statement by one woman about choosing to cover herself in public, watch the video-poem "The Shield". And still, there is the opposite experience of emotional and physical illness about being compelled to cover.

At the same time, men are not as free as they may initially appear: Qanta notes the emotional imprisonment of many privileged and relatively empowered young Saudi men, who seem to be caught in an impossible struggle for a sense of purpose. Many of these young men from privileged backgrounds have unlimited access to cars and material things, but are faced with a weak sense of social belonging and too much freedom. She called them "lost boys" and treated them in the hospital when their drug-taking, alcohol consuming 120mph recklessness landed them in the emergency room.

Identity and Belonging
One of the main threads in this story is the question of the shifting personal identity of the author: she is challenged to confront her identity at multiple levels throughout her time in Saudi Arabia. This may be familiar to those in the book club who read Lipstick Jihad, several years ago, and is familiar to anyone who has struggled with hybrid or multiple identities based on religion, heritage, ethnicity, citizenship or language. Qanta gives us a lot of clues about the divisions of class and race in Saudi Arabia, and how qualified the sense of belonging can be in the face of so much pressure for conformity and homogeneity in public spaces.

Social Change  
One of the most challenging and hopeful elements of our discussion recognized the very sensitive issues of human rights critique and enforcement that comes from "outsiders"and acknowledged the importance of change happening from inside Saudi Arabia itself.

In reading about many human rights abuses all over the world (including in the US) we can often see education as the key to ending violence and suffering. But the people Qanta describes are highly educated. In many cases, the lack of basic economic security appears to be a related issue: with better access to shelter, food and health care, human rights will improve in many situations: but in spite of class disparity and some economic vulnerability, basic needs are not the main issue in the Saudi case. The end of civil war, violent rebellion, or occupation is another common solution to human rights abuse in many countries, but not in Saudi Arabia where the country is at "peace" and the violence that is most rampant is domestic violence.

In Qanta's description of Saudi Arabia, we see a wholehearted embrace of consumer culture, a country that has mastered modernity and is also highly resistant to external pressure to adopt liberal democratic concepts such as multiculturalism, religious tolerance, universal suffrage. The power of the traditionalists' arguments for cultural/religious 'exceptionalism' rests on a foundation of resistance to the erasure of difference and a defense of identity. Outsiders trying to criticize and change things are not going to be very helpful here. But there is a lot of hope for improved women's rights in Saudi Arabia, and it is coming from inside the country:

• There are many men in Saudi Arabia who support women who strive for more autonomy by owning businesses and professionals, and are their supporters and allies. Samar Badawi's lawyer and husband Waleed Abu Alkhair helped her challenge Saudi guardianship laws that allowed her father to continue abusing her: she recently won a 2012 Woman of Courage award.
• There are organized movements of women in Saudi Arabia who are pushing for change, and who have made progress. The movement to allow women to legally drive, for example.
• Saudis understand the dynamics of "religious conservatives... (who) emotionally blackmail Saudis by preying on their weaknesses to always be good Muslims" (Sabria Jawar), and have found ways to resist this, with impressive results. The focus seems to be on incremental change, although impatience is mounting.