Saudiwoman's Weblog

Today I was quoted in this article in the Saudi Gazette. I completely agree with the whole article As you can see at the beginning, there are many women in Saudi Arabia who sanction the status quo, just like the anonymous IT undergrad. Outsiders would be amazed at how many women here do not welcome change. Although I have yet to come across any studies on the matter, I think there a lot more women than men objecting to equality and freedom. I have my own theory on why but I’ll leave that for another post. I even remember a few years back reading an article in Arab News Newspaper written by Raid Qusti in which he wrote that he’s contemplating quitting writing for women’s rights since women themselves are against his ideas.
Well anyway the article was a great piece and a step in the right direction in moving the dialogue along. My only objection is the writer put quotation marks on what she attributes to me when actually it’s more of a paraphrase. The interview was conducted on the phone and I assumed that she was taping it but apparently she wasn’t. I don’t disagree with what’s written. It has the gist of what I was saying but it’s definitely not my words, especially the hullaballoo part. I can’t get my tongue around that last one. This is the quote:
 “Yes, the segregation of men and women is holding us back, wherein we do not have courses like engineering and journalism, simply because of unavailability of women’s faculty,” she said.
“Otherwise, this is no real reason for women not to go out, get an education and make careers. It is all in the head, and of course, the notion of people opposing this plays an important part in the hullaballoo created.”

The article I wrote about in my last post is not that unique. Everyday we see new articles that test the social and political boundaries of our culture. What interested me in this article is that I view it as a prime example of these boundary testing articles and what is more important than the article is how the public receives it. The first impact can be measured in the comments written on an article’s webpage. This particular article had the most comments for the day it was published. The Al Watan newspaper has a time limit on when you can post a comment so all the comments were written on the same day the article was published. There were 199 according to the site’s count but my count was 195. That could be due to comments being deleted before my count.

The article chiefly deals with women issues, funnily though the majority of the comments were posted by men. 69% of the comments were under male usernames, while only 19% were posted by women. 12% of the posts were under unisex usernames.

Over half of the posts were written by men objecting to and belittling the author. Some of these include remarks that go as low as to say that educated women are usually ugly and that’s why they don’t care for the abaya. One guy wrote that women cannot be raped unless they want to be.  Another hinted that the rise of sexual harassment might be because of the restrictions on the muttawa (vice cops). Many of the men wrote that the numbers the Ministry of Interior Affairs released concerning harassment and rape cases is marginal compared to the numbers of the same cases in the west (especially USA).

 Of the 19% of women posts, 12% agreed with the author. Um Hala wrote this is what we should expect since we raise our sons to discipline their sisters and require mothers to sit in the backseat of a car if she is riding with more than one son. Um Abdullah expressed astonishment on how this culture treats perpetrators like victims and criminalizes true victims. She also wrote that the pre Islamic tradition of killing newborn daughters is more merciful than what we are doing to our daughters.

These comments reveal our society in a way that’s mostly inaccessible to outsiders. If the abaya topic was raised in a social gathering here in Riyadh, the arguments above would be the most likely to occur.

 Two items of news that I’m happy about. First off a first Saudi female astraounut has emerged. Her name is Lama Al Hazeen and get this; she had her photo in Al Hayat newspaper, no hijab and free-floating with a group of men and women including Steven Hawking. According to Al Hayat, Lama is looking for a sponsor to pay for her trip into space. Here is the picture.

Another thing is that on the ground level there’s a lot of buzz about women being allowed to drive. Even the ultra-conservative have a somewhat air of acquiescence. The telegraph reported that a source from Riyadh informed one of their reporters that it would happen by the end of the year. And to mark Women’s Day, March 8th, Wajeha Al-Huwaider got her sister in law to video-tape her driving while making a little speech requesting the authorities to allow women to drive. She then posted the video on You Tube. For more info click here.

  So I haven’t written in a while. I was quite busy preparing for a trip to the US of A. The purpose was to participate in a conference in which I had a paper accepted. This is my second conference and during the first I had suspicions that they are fun and now I KNOW they are. My husband and I left the kids with my mother and went all the way to Provo,  Utah(total 16 hours in the air). From the desert to snow and snow covered mountains. The conference was just up my alley. I found the papers motivating. It’s like when you go dancing and the next day you’re still dancing in your head. It makes me want to start working and get another paper out.Afterwards we went to Washington D.C. and stayed at a bed and breakfast called the Intown Uptown. It’s owned and run by a friendly young woman called Sandy. The place is unbelievable like something out of an Anne Rice novel. It’s an authentic old house but immaculately furnished and Sandy herself gets up every morning to make us a breakfast that looks straight out of a gourmet magazine photo-shoot. The only downside was the location. It’s a bit in the outskirts and the area is not even on the tourist maps of Washington. It takes a 10-15 minute bus ride and another 10 minute metro ride to get to Chinatown.

It’s been a long time since I last went to the US. I remember sometimes when I mention KSA to Americans, they don’t even know where it is and when they do know they give that attitude that I must be filthy rich. Now, it seems to most KSA = terrorism. That is sad. When we first got there my husband was detained because he’s a male that falls into the age bracket. So he had to be rechecked and there was a long line for guys like him so I went ahead and caught the next flight to Utah. I don’t know how I feel about that. My husband is not a terrorist and just because he’s an Arab and of a certain age does not make him a potential risk. At the same time, I want them to double-check everyone because I don’t want to be bombed and have my kids orphaned.