SAUDI ARABIA - WOMEN’S ISSUES SOCIALLY DIVISIVE

Published: Wednesday, June 02, 2010

May 31, 2010
By Katherine Zoepf
JIDDA -- Roughly two years ago, Rowdha Yousef began to notice a disturbing trend: Saudi women like herself were beginning to organize campaigns for greater personal freedoms. Suddenly, there were women asking for the right to drive, to choose whether to wear a veil, and to take a job without a male relative's permission, all using the Internet to collect signatures and organize meetings and all becoming, she felt, more voluble by the month.
The final straw came last summer, when she read reports that a female activist in Saudi Arabia's eastern province, Wajeha al-Huwaider, had been to the border with Bahrain, demanding to cross using only her passport, without a male chaperon or a male guardian's written permission.
Ms. Huwaider was not allowed to leave the country unaccompanied and, like other Saudi women campaigning for new rights, has failed -- so far -- to change any existing laws or customs.
But Ms. Yousef is still outraged, and since August has taken on activists at their own game. With 15 other women, she started a campaign, "My Guardian Knows What's Best for Me." Within two months, they had collected more than 5,400 signatures on a petition "rejecting the ignorant requests of those inciting liberty" and demanding "punishments for those who call for equality between men and women, mingling between men and women in mixed environments, and other unacceptable behaviors."
Ms. Yousef's fight against the would-be liberalizers symbolizes a larger tussle in Saudi society over women's rights that has suddenly made the female factor a major issue for reformers and conservatives striving to shape Saudi Arabia's future.
Public separation of the sexes is a strongly distinctive feature of Saudi Arabia, making it perhaps a logical area for fierce debate. Since women have such a limited role in Saudi public life, however, it is somewhat surprising that it is their rights that have become a matter of open contention in a society that keeps most debate hidden.
Surprising, too, are the complexities turned up by the debate, which go far beyond what some Saudis see as the simplistic Western argument that women are simply entitled to more rights.
Take Ms. Yousef. She is a 39-year-old divorced mother of three (aged 13, 12 and 9) who volunteers as a mediator in domestic abuse cases. A tall, confident woman with a warm, effusive manner and sparkling stiletto-heeled sandals, her conversation, over Starbucks lattes, ranges from racism in the kingdom (Ms. Yousef has Somali heritage and calls herself a black Saudi) to her admiration for Hillary Rodham Clinton to the abuse she says she has suffered at the hands of Saudi liberals.
She believes firmly that most Saudis share her conservative values but insists that adherence to Shariah law and family custom need not restrict a woman seeking a say. Female campaigners in the reform camp, she says, are influenced by Westerners who do not understand the needs and beliefs of Saudi women.
"These human rights groups come, and they only listen to one side, those who are demanding liberty for women," she said.
Every Saudi woman, regardless of age or status, must have a male relative who acts as her guardian and has responsibility for and authority over her in a host of legal and personal matters.
Ms. Yousef, whose guardian is her elder brother, said that she enjoyed a great deal of freedom while respecting the rules of her society. Guardian rules are such that she could start her campaign, for instance, without seeking her guardian's permission.
She did not wish to speak in detail about her divorce but noted that, unusually, she had retained custody of her children through their 18th birthdays. She said she had founded her guardianship campaign unassisted, without any special connections, enlisting women in her circle of contacts as fellow founding members.
Activists like Ms. Huwaider, Ms. Yousef believes, are susceptible to foreign influences because of personal problems with men. "If she is suffering because of her guardian, she can go to a Shariah court that could remove the responsibility for her from that man and transfer it to someone who is more trustworthy."
To an outsider, Ms. Yousef's effort -- petitioning King Abdullah to disregard calls for gender equality -- might seem superfluous. After all, Saudi women still may not drive or vote and are obliged by custom to wear the floor-length cloaks known as abayas, and headscarves, outside their own homes.
Women may not appear in court, and though they may be divorced via brief verbal declarations from their husbands, they frequently find it very difficult to obtain divorce themselves. Fathers may marry off 10-year-old daughters, a practice defended by the highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh.
The separation of genders in Saudi public life is difficult to overstate -- there are women-only stores, women-only lines in fast food restaurants, and women-only offices in private companies. Members of the hai'a, the governmental Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, patrol to ensure that ikhtilat, or "mixing" of the sexes, does not occur.
There are a few places where men and women do work together -- medical colleges, some hospitals, a handful of banks and private companies. But the percentage of Saudis in such environments is minuscule.
Jidda and Riyadh host stand-up comedy shows where young people do mix -- albeit summoned with only hours' notice via cellphone in an attempt to dodge policing. At the popular Janadriyah cultural festival in Riyadh, families were allowed to visit together for the first time last year, instead of on separate men's and women's days.
Where conservatives like Ms. Yousef attribute the recent volubility of rights campaigners to Western meddling, liberals say that Saudi society itself is changing, and that increasing freedoms for Saudi women appear to be cautiously supported by King Abdullah himself.

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