**Not sure if this should go in World Affairs or Culture, so mods plz move it to the proper forum. **
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/283110p-242633c.html
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Even for a panel discussion here at the Jeddah Economic Forum on the role of women in Saudi Arabia, the sexes were separated by a high barrier and women had to enter the room through what was called the Female Entrance. The women - most of them highly educated and generally affluent - wore black* abayas* and, when they asked a question from the floor, they were not shown on the meeting hall’s closed-circuit TV. Some of the discussion was about driving. This is something women cannot do in Saudi Arabia. The custom - now a law - imposes quite a burden on the society, not to mention individual women.
One of the male panelists - someone who favored giving women the right to drive - wondered if putting women behind the wheel would set off riots. A discussion ensued. After a while it was possible to forget that driving was under discussion - not say, divorce or (gasp!) the end of polygamy, or even women’s suffrage.
Women behind the wheel.
When coming to Saudi Arabia from the United States, you need to set your watch. Officially, the time difference is eight hours ahead of the East Coast. Unofficially, I think it’s about 250 years behind. Much of this feeling has to do with the obvious status of women. To the highly successful women (and men) brought here by the Council on Foreign Relations, it is a repellent aspect of a society that is so at odds with not just the West, but even the rest of the Arab world.
Saudi Arabia produces a good deal of the world’s oil. But its most obvious product has to be cultural contradictions.
Somewhere - off-stage and out of sight - are the religious authorities. They have their own police, ready to pounce on any inappropriately dressed woman. It is the religious authorities who will not permit women to drive or vote, and insist that they dress in non-Gucci black.
Back in 1990, some 50 women took to their cars in protest. The religious authorities reacted with alarm. Once women drove cars, who knew what would follow? To the religious, this was a clear moral issue with grave sexual overtones. The women were punished, their families suffered and a sexist custom was codified into law.
How long can this continue? Maybe as long as oil prices remain high and the kingdom can afford a sexist version of the racial segregation Americans once practiced. In the end, though, economics and common sense will trump religious zealotry and women will be liberated.
But sometimes an outsider has a keener eye for absurdities - not to mention the satellite dishes on almost every roof that download what women all over the world are doing.
Ladies, start your engines.
**At first I thought this was going to be another “oh poor Muslim women in their burkas” article, but its acutally kind of different from all the articles about the midest/asia written by “outsiders.” While I don’t agree with the author’s disbelief at women’s separate entrances (he IS an outsider so I can understand it), i do believe he made some good points in this article, like how the right to drive or vote (among others) is denied them and how absurd it is. But I had to laugh at the part where he says “common sense will trump religious zealotry.” Common sense does not exist in these idiots. In the end he brings up a very interesting point and pretty much sums up most of the Muslim world: it’s easily accessible to see what women all over the world are doing, economically, socially, culturally etc, but when it comes to your own, mindsets and attitudes are still 250 years behind…
**
dat’s called fizz with substance well said bhai sahab