Saudi women getting impatient

Sabria Jawhar

My friend Sabria Jawhar, a columnist for the Saudi Gazette in Saudi Arabia, writes in her column today of her growing impatience with women's rights reform in the Kingdom. I've known Sabria for a few years now. She has been critical of Western efforts to “help” Saudi women find independence and to demand their rights to equal opportunities in education, jobs and voting. She often argued that change in how Saudi society treats women will come from within and not from the West.

Now she says that Saudis need to pick up the pace. This column is a significant departure from her position that all good things come with patience and when Saudi women say they have had enough. Well, apparently they have had enough. What sparked this column is her recent conversations with university-educated, middle-class women in their 30s and 40s who are treated like children because their lives are guided by the good (or ill) will of their fathers, brothers or husbands.

I know that Sabria leads a highly independent life because her family is forward thinking. But she is witnessing the continuing arbitrary restrictions that make little sense for educated adult women who deserve to travel, get a job or drive a car without permission from a male.

This hardly seems a novel idea to Westerners. And at least by our standards this column may not be that hard-hitting on the topic. But it's significant when Saudis express frustration and impatience with their country that moves at a snail's pace to implement reform

The Qatif girl case and the recent jailing of Saudi blogger Fouad Al-Farhan have some Saudis re-examining the pace of reform. I think we can expect more columns like this from Sabria in the future.

Click on the headline above to link to the entire column.

- RLW

Shut Up! OK, but for how long?

By Sabria S. Jawhar

The Saudi Gazette

THE National Society for Human Rights conducted a workshop the other day in Riyadh on how human rights issues should be included in school curriculum, especially higher education. This is a noble effort by the organization, although I am skeptical if it will make much of an impression on the people who develop the guidelines for educational curriculum.

My skepticism may not be based on sound reason, but I must say that I'm getting impatient with these tiny steps taken to make sure that all of us enjoy the rights we are entitled to and that are granted by Islam.

I remember a couple of years ago Karen Hughes, at the urging of President Bush, came to Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah and lectured Saudi women about their right to drive a car, get any job they wanted and to "spread our wings." I felt insulted by the lecture as were most of the Saudi women in the audience. Who was this Westerner to come to Saudi Arabia and lecture us about equal rights for women?

Since Hughes' visit, many Western women's advocacy groups have attempted to speak to us about our rights. And an alleged honor killing by a Pakistani father of his 16-year-old daughter last month in Canada has only heightened the criticism against "Muslims oppressing their women."

Now some readers will say that since I am studying in the United Kingdom, the West has somehow corrupted me, as some of the e-mails I received indicated. But the fact is that for a couple of years now and some recent conversations with my friends in Madina and Jeddah have convinced me that Saudi women need and are entitled to more freedom. There are too many restrictions and the reforms we are entitled to are coming too slowly.