WUNRN
SAUDI ARABIA - MALE GUARDIANS -
WOMEN'S RESTRICTIONS - CASE EXAMPLE
By Tariq Al Maeena, Special to Gulf
News
April 22, 2012
Image
Credit: Hugo A. SancHez/©Gulf News
Women
in
Take the case of Dr Samia Al
Amoudi, an obstetrician and gynaecologist by trade who found herself diagnosed
with breast cancer six years ago. The ordeal with her affliction shook her to
the core, but it also strengthened her resolve to meet her illness head-on. In
her own words, she describes the moment she was diagnosed as "a date that
has a special place in my heart and the hearts of my children, family and my
loved ones."
"Being a doctor, the moment
I felt a lump, my medical instincts sharpened. I began to feel the lump and
checked the tumour and the lymph nodes under my arm. The disease did not only
make me a stronger woman, it also made me more capable of dealing with life's
crises. It added to my faith and made me see my life differently," she
said.
But she did not choose to suffer
in silence. She informed her family about her condition and then turned to the
requisite chemotherapy radiation for treatment. After beating the disease, she
took the path of spreading awareness and received many global awards for
bringing the issue of breast cancer to the forefront among Arab women. As a
single mother of two, she was the first Saudi to share her private conflict
with cancer with women in the region by bringing her ordeal and its impact out
on the public stage.
In
2007, Condoleezza Rice the
After having successfully fought
her personal battle so courageously and helped thousands of other women seek
early detection and care, Samia admits that she remains defeated in one aspect
of her personal life. And that is the restriction placed on her mobility by the
issue of male guardianship which dictates that she, like all other Saudi women,
requires the permission of a male to travel abroad.
It is
not enough that driving is not permitted for women and often leaves women at
the mercy of some very inexperienced hands at the wheel, but to be subjected to
asking for permission to travel to attend conferences or lectures in her field
is something that does not sit well with a woman who not only overcame a
personal battle with a deadly disease, but along the way helped over 50,000
other women deal with it.
Narrow mentality
As she tweeted, "I have
passed 50 years [age] and am a physician, and have received at my hands
thousands of patients, and yet I am required to get permission from a male
guardian to travel to a medical convention. In my case [as a single mother] it
is my son who I will have to turn to, the baby I had given birth to."
Why then, many wonder, is this
restriction on women's mobility still allowed to continue, especially in view
of the kingdom's publicly announced intentions of ensuring that women's rights
would be promoted and respected?
Perhaps it has something to do
with the mentality of some of our clerics who arouse enough vocal complaints
when it comes to women's issues. Perhaps none can be highlighted better than a
point of view raised by a Saudi cleric at a recent conference in Qaseem, a city
outside
Since