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#Post#: 13393--------------------------------------------------
Women's Issues in Saudi Arabia
By: Kerry Date: November 30, 2016, 3:26 pm
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I was pleasantly surprised by this news from the Saudi Gazette:
Women in Riyadh feel more at ease without niqab
HTML http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/women-riyadh-feel-ease-without-niqab/<br
/>
[quote]THE land-locked Saudi capital Riyadh has long been
culturally conservative in comparison to other areas in the
Kingdom requiring its women to cover their faces with what it is
known as niqab. But women there no longer feel fully obliged to
move around its streets covering their faces with a veil known
as the niqab, now considered by many as non-mandatory
requirement in Islam anyways.
Instead, more and more women are opting to wear the Islamic veil
that covers the hair known as hijab, sometimes even with strands
of their hair showing, combined with colorful abayas or cloaks
instead of the traditional black color.
“I know families [in Riyadh], the eldest sibling could not wear
hijab alone — she had to wear niqab, but the youngest sister can
now walk even without a scarf on her hair in some places,” Rawan
Al-Wabel, a mother of three and a healthcare worker, told Al
Arabiya English.
Al-Wabel says women in Riyadh now can walk even without a scarf
to cover their hair in some places.[/quote]
Things are changing, and they are changing little by little
without religious extremists raising a big fuss. I think you
face the danger of rebellion if change happens too fast. The
policy of the Saudi government seems to be slow but steady
progress in the area of women's rights.
[quote]With the intermingling spurring more of a freer space in
Dammam, the port city of Jeddah, a gateway for pilgrimages to
the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah, “is the most liberal,”
Wabel said, where “one could see Saudi ladies without scarfs
over their heads.”
Asked if women in Riyadh are becoming bolder in their dressing
like their eastern and western counterparts in the Kingdom,
Najla Al-Sulaiman, 30, told Al Arabiya English, “Of course.”
People in the capital are becoming “bolder, and more accepting,”
said Sulaiman, who works as a compliance manger in an
international bank in Riyadh.
Sulaiman, who has did a Master’s in the United States from 2011
till 2015, said “the difference through the three years was
extremely striking” when she returned to Riyadh. “You see more
colorful abayas, more women who are not covering their faces.”
Sulaiman, who does not wear hijab when traveling outside Saudi
Arabia like many other compatriot women, said: “While the
overwhelming majority are still covering the hair, I have seen
girls without head scarfs.”
“Before, when we used to see girls wearing really bright colors
and not wearing veil to cover their hair, we used to feel
surprised,” she added. “But now we see this and not at all feel
surprised.”[/quote]
The Saudi approach may be working. Westerners who criticize
the Saudi government about how they treat women may be
misguided. If too many things change too fast, the more
conservative religious leaders can preach against it and gain a
lot of support from people. You can get a rebellion or
revolution that topples the government that then establishes the
conservative religious mindset.
#Post#: 13394--------------------------------------------------
Re: Women's Issues in Saudi Arabia
By: Kerry Date: November 30, 2016, 3:36 pm
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Also from the Saudi Gazette
HTML http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/sexual-harassment/:
[quote]ALTHOUGH Saudi society is largely conservative and
attaches great importance to religious values, acts of
harassment against women are on the rise. Women get harassed
physically, verbally and online although they don the
all-covering abaya and even face veils in public places.
Okaz/Saudi Gazette talked to several members of the public to
shed light on this negative behavior, which exists in most
public places.
Does unemployment have anything to do with this habit of Saudis
or is it because there are conservative Saudis who believe women
have no role outside their homes?
In 2013, a religious activist allegedly encouraged young men to
harass women cashiers in retail outlets so that they get fed up
and quit their work.
Women also get harassed by drivers who offer their services
online. Some drivers annoy women by ogling at them. Samar Ameen,
a college student, said she had once been harassed by the driver
who drops her off at the university.
“All of a sudden, the driver started talking with me and took a
different street I was not familiar with. I threatened him
saying I would open the door and jump off. He got scared himself
and went back onto the highway. I never rode with him after that
incident,” she said.
Lubna Omar, another college student, had a similar experience
with her driver. He flirted openly with her one day while he was
driving her to the college. She told her father who immediately
fired the driver and threatened him that he would call the
police if the driver ever calls his daughter’s cell phone number
again.[/quote]
Part of this problem may be that women aren't allowed to drive.
If they don't have male relatives to drive them, they have to
hire men to drive them. In a society where men and women are
highly segregated, some men get aggressive when alone with a
woman; and I think some men in Arab countries also seem to think
more adventuresome women are "asking for it." Indeed some
American men seem to think like that too.
It's incredible, isn't it, that a religious leader would
actually encourage men to do this, trying to make women quit
their jobs? What kind of religious leader is that?
They are starting to prosecute men for this.
[quote]Bayan Zahran, a female lawyer, has taken up many
harassment cases where the victims were all women.
“If a woman wants to file a harassment complaint, all she has to
do is go to the police station in the neighborhood where she has
been harassed and file a report. She should have enough
information to identify the harasser such as his name or license
plate number. A police officer will ask the harasser to show up
at the police station and refer him to the Bureau of
Investigation and Public Prosecution. If there is enough
evidence against him, he will be produced in court for a final
judgment,” she explained.
If the crime is proved, the judge will hand out a punishment
commensurate with the type of harassment, she added.
Talal Al-Hindi, a legal counselor, said the committee of social
affairs at the Shoura Council has drafted an anti-harassment law
that stipulates a prison sentence not exceeding five years and a
fine of SR500,000 or both for the culprit. The members of the
council have not voted on the law yet.
The demand for an anti-harassment law by the public has
increased in light of the rising number of cases. The problem is
some women get scared and never report incidents of harassment
for fear of staining the family’s reputation in society.
Abdullah Salamah, manager of a shopping center in Madinah, urged
women who go shopping to report harassment cases to the security
guard at the mall.
“In this mall, we have over 70 surveillance cameras installed at
different places to ensure safety of all shoppers. We are
planning to install 300 more cameras over the next few months.
There are 105 security guards in the mall,” he said.
Dr. Omar Al-Juhani, a legal counselor, said there are three
types of harassment: harassment by a non-relative, harassment by
a relative and electronic harassment. The third constitutes
cybercrime.
“In fact, 30 percent of women do not report incidents of
harassment online while 20 percent of them report such cases to
the police. Harassment includes the use of obscene words,
swearing, improper material or photos,” he explained.[/quote]
I think it's fair to say many women in the US also fail to
report harassment out of fear or embarrassment.
#Post#: 13395--------------------------------------------------
Re: Women's Issues in Saudi Arabia
By: Kerry Date: November 30, 2016, 3:51 pm
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This story from yesterday comes from the BBC
HTML http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38157565.
[quote]An influential Saudi prince, the billionaire investor
Alwaleed bin Talal, has called on his country to lift its ban on
women driving cars.
He said it was a matter of economic necessity as well as women's
rights to lift restrictions.
Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are
not allowed to drive, and women's rights activists have been
arrested for defying the ban.[/quote]
Money usually makes a good argument for doing something if
reason doesn't.
[quote]The prince, among the world's wealthiest individuals,
said: "Preventing a woman from driving a car is today an issue
of rights similar to the one that forbade her from receiving an
education or having an independent identity.
"They are all unjust acts by a traditional society, far more
restrictive than what is lawfully allowed by the precepts of
religion."
While it is not technically illegal for women to drive, only men
are awarded driving licences. Protests against the ban go back
20 years.
The prince's statement, published at length on his website,
argues that the ban is extremely expensive for Saudi Arabia.
With poor public transport, more than a million drivers are
employed to get women about, many of whom are foreigners
employed at considerable expense.
The prince estimates that the average family spends each month
3,800 riyals ($1,000 or Ł800) on a driver, which drains family
incomes.
"There are more than one million Saudi women in need of a safe
means of transportation to take them to work every morning,"
argues the prince.
"It often falls upon the men to leave their work obligations to
take their wives and children to clinics and other destinations,
something that women could do on their own.
"Retaining foreign drivers not only has the effect of reducing a
family's disposable income... but also contributes to the
siphoning of billions of riyals every year from the Saudi
economy to foreign destinations in the form of remittances," he
adds.[/quote]
It seems obvious to me. It's expensive and it's unnecessary to
bring in foreigners to act as drivers. If I were a Saudi man,
I wouldn't want my wife spending so much time alone with a man
from another country if she was perfectly capable of driving
herself around. That doesn't make sense.
I hadn't thought of how this siphons cash out of Saudi Arabia in
the form of money sent back to other countries, but it's clear
it would. As Saudi Arabia tries to move away from depending so
much on oil for its income and more on investment, you can see
that money that leaves the country is no longer circulating in
Saudi Arabia and supporting businesses there. It's a matter of
time before women start driving there. People just have to get
used to the idea, and many already used to it and want it. The
Prince speaking out on it is helping get more people used to it.
#Post#: 16326--------------------------------------------------
Re: Women's Issues in Saudi Arabia
By: Kerry Date: September 30, 2017, 7:42 am
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You all probably heard a few days ago that women are going to be
allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia. What you may not have heard
about was the cleric who said women's brains were one quarter
the size of men's. No joke. Unbelievable, but he said that. I
heard about it on the BBC, and I found an article at The
Guardian.
September 23, 2017
HTML https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/23/saudi-cleric-saad-al-hijri-banned-woman-driving-cars-quarter-brain
In a video this week, Hijri asked what the traffic department
would do it if it discovered a man with only half a brain.
“Would it give him a licence or not? It would not. So how can it
give it to a woman when she has only half?” he said.
“If she goes to the market she loses another half. What is left?
A quarter ... We demand the traffic department check because she
is not suitable to drive and she has only a quarter.”
The comments sparked outrage on social media, which is hugely
popular in the kingdom.
Twitter users shared the video, many criticising it and making
jokes about his remarks, under the Arabic hashtag
“Al-Hijri-women-quarter-brain”.
The hashtag was used 119,000 times in just 24 hours.
Some users posted pictures of Saudi female scientists and
academics in response and questioned Hijri’s own intellectual
capacities.
But there were many others who supported the cleric, and the
hashtag “Al-Hijri is with the woman, not against her” was used
on 20,000 tweets in the same time period.
Hijri’s suspension, ordered by the provincial governor, was
aimed at preventing the spread of views that spark controversy
and do not serve the national interest, the provincial spokesman
said.
#Post#: 16328--------------------------------------------------
Re: Women's Issues in Saudi Arabia
By: paralambano Date: September 30, 2017, 9:12 am
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Kerry -
A New York Times article claims a Saudi cleric said women risked
damaging their ovaries by driving.
para . . . .
#Post#: 16340--------------------------------------------------
Re: Women's Issues in Saudi Arabia
By: HOLLAND Date: October 1, 2017, 7:16 pm
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Curious that the Sunnah of Islam mentions that the wives of
Mohammed rode, without comment, horses and camels. From this,
an argument could be made that the prohibition of women driving
automobiles is entirely without foundation and contrary to
Islam. How can a woman be permitted, under Islam, to ride a
horse or camel but not drive an automobile? Sounds like a bit
of male chauvinism trumped up as religious piety . . .
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