WUNRN
TIME Partners with CNN
SAUDI ARABIA WOMEN IN FOCUS - PHOTO
GALLERY & ARTICLE
THE CHANGING ROLES OF WOMEN IN SAUDI
ARABIA
Women in the elevator of
the Kingdom Tower adjust their clothes before making their way home. Outside
the office, they have to adhere to the kingdom's strict codes.
Photograph for TIME by
Kate Brooks
_____________________________________________________________________
NEW RIGHTS &
CHALLENGES FOR SAUDI ARABIA WOMEN
By Andrew Lee Butters / Riyadh
Like
those of its competitors in New York or London, the sleek glass and steel
offices of media company Rotana are filled with preening attitude and
fashion-conscious staffers: assistants teeter in shoes that might have absorbed
much of their monthly paycheck; executives parade the halls in power suits and
pencil skirts. But Rotana isn't in New York or London; it's in Riyadh, capital
of Saudi Arabia, a country in which women normally adhere to a strict dress
code in public — a black cloak called an abaya, a headscarf and a veil, the
niqab, which covers everything but their eyes.
There's
another reason many Saudis would find Rotana shocking: men and women working
side by side. The sight unnerves enough men who come looking for a job that
human-resources manager Sultana al-Rowaili has developed a trick to see if a
male applicant can handle working in a mixed-gender office. She arranges for a
female colleague to interrupt the initial interview, and watches to see if the
man loses concentration or stares too much. Sometimes even that isn't
necessary. Many men are undone by the very idea of being interviewed by a
woman. "They are in a state of shock to see a woman in a position of
authority and to have to ask her for a job," al-Rowaili says. (See pictures of Saudi women.)
Saudi
men may have to start getting used to such situations. True, Rotana remains an
anomaly protected by the position and progressive ideals of its owner — global
investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin
Abdulaziz al-Saud. And Saudi women still can't drive and legally
can't even leave the house to shop, let alone get a job, without a male family
member's permission. Yet under the guidance of a few members of the Saudi royal
family — in particular the current King, Abdullah — the kingdom is slowly
changing. Mixed-gender workplaces are becoming more common, especially in banks
and good hospitals, where female doctors are not unusual. "People used to
say, 'Why is she working? Why does she need the money?' Now they say, 'It takes
a woman to solve a problem,'" says Norah al-Malhooq, an administrator at
King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh. (See pictures of Prince Alwaleed
observing Ramadan.)
The
government is expanding educational opportunities for women by building women's
universities (as opposed to segregated campuses at male-dominated
universities); last month it even launched the kingdom's first coeducational
university. The state is trying to encourage women's entry into the workforce,
and is sponsoring initiatives to protect women and children from domestic
abuse. And it is pushing Saudis to discuss the notion of empowerment, formerly
such a taboo subject that even the word was off-limits in newspapers. "The
message is that women are coming," says Dr. Maha Almuneef, one of six
women named earlier this year to the Shura council, a 156-person advisory body
appointed by the King. "It's a good first step. The King and the political
system are saying that the time has come. There are small steps now. There are
giant steps coming. But most Saudis have been taught the traditional ways. You
can't just change the social order all at once." (Read: "A Rapprochement Between
Syria and Saudi Arabia?")
For
the country's feminist and human-rights activists, and the many others who
would like more freedom, the pace of change remains painfully slow. Why, they
wonder, doesn't the King snap his fingers and remove some of the more obviously
absurd obstacles to equality? For all the publicity about the new female
members of the Shura Council, for instance, they still don't have the voting
rights of their male colleagues. "This is tokenism, it's insulting,"
says Hatoon Ajwad al-Fassi, a columnist and assistant professor of women's
history at King Saud University. "We are asking for full participation.
All the doors that are closed for women should be open." Given government
restrictions on the right to assemble and discuss political issues even in
private homes, al-Fassi says it's impossible to know just how many Saudi women
want change. "It's an exaggeration to call it a women's movement. But we
are proud to say that something is going on in Saudi Arabia. We are not really
free, but it is possible for women to express themselves as never before."
Change, and Its Limits
Saudi
Arabia's western allies have been pushing it to reform its social and political
arrangements since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19
hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a conservative version of
Islam, high unemployment, limited democratic rights and archaic attitudes to
women fed a mood of unchecked radicalism among some young men. Last February, Abdullah
announced a sweeping reshuffle of posts in government to remove some of the
more old-style figures, including a top judge who once ruled it would be legal
to kill the owners of a television station that broadcast
"immorality." Abdullah installed an Education Minister charged with
ensuring that schools emphasize Islam's tradition of tolerance, and a woman,
Norah al-Faiz, to be Deputy Minister in charge of girls' education, the first
time a woman has held a Cabinet-level post. (See pictures of Osama Bin Laden.)
Though
al-Faiz is well known and admired, her appointment also reveals the limits to
the changes under way in Saudi Arabia. Al-Faiz meets with her male colleagues
only by videophone, asks her minister for permission to appear on television,
declined to be photographed for this story and vented her frustration to the
press when what appeared to be an old passport-style photograph of her (without
a niqab) appeared on the Internet. Al-Faiz told TIME that she brings no special
mandate beyond improving education for girls. "I don't like quick
action," she says. "I'll have to decide where the needs are and to
rank them. I believe in teamwork."
Al-Faiz's
caution is understandable. She's being watched by the whole country. "The
pressure is huge, not to make a mistake," says Dr. Hanan al-Ahmady, a
friend of al-Faiz, and her successor as head of the women's department at the
Institute of Public Administration, a government school for civil servants.
"You have to prove you are not giving away your religious principles. You
have to prove that participating in public affairs and taking leadership
positions doesn't jeopardize Islamic values and Saudi identity."