This past week, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia finally granted something that most Saudi women thought wouldn’t happen during their lifetimes: women’s right to vote.
In a televised address just days before the nation’s municipal elections on Sept. 29, the king decreed that women will be able to vote and run for office. He also promised to appoint women to his advisory council, which is currently comprised of only males.
Not that the vote counts for much in Saudi Arabia, where only a select few government seats are voted on and the elections are postponed at the whim of the monarchy (this year’s elections were originally scheduled for 2009), but it’s still a step forward. The promised voting rights won’t come into effect until the 2015 elections, and even then, it’s not a sure thing that they’ll be implemented at all, considering that there hasn’t been official legislation passed. Even with the delay in and nebulous plans for enactment, this news comes as a pleasant surprise, considering the climate of female oppression in the country.
In Saudi Arabia, there isn’t so much a gender gap as there is an enormous gender chasm. Saudi women are some of the most oppressed in the world, thanks to rigidly-enforced Sharia law and the influence of tribal cultures. Saudi Arabia ranks 130 out of 134 on the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report, published by the World Economic Forum. It was the only nation to score a zero, not only in the political empowerment category, but in any category. (The United States ranked only 31 overall, but that’s a story for another column.)
Saudi women, regardless of age or marital status, are required by law to have a male guardian, usually a father or a husband. Women need their male guardian’s permission to marry or divorce, to travel, to obtain an education, to open a bank account and (until recent years) to seek employment, among other things. Almost all public areas are segregated by gender, and a strict dress code—complete coverage, excepting eyes and hands, in the form of a niqab or burqa, is mandatory for Saudi women.
Most shocking, however, is the ban on women driving. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to ban women from driving, including other conservative Sharia nations, and the reasoning is that driving would require the removal of the veil, as well as promote mixed-gender encounters with women’s increased mobility. As it stands now, women are totally dependent on men for transportation, and Saudi women spend a large percentage of their income on taxis – all of which are driven by men, therefore rendering the “mixed-gender avoidance” reason somewhat ineffective.
Furthermore, this ban is enforced: Just days after the voting announcement, a Saudi judge sentenced a woman to ten lashes for driving a car. Thankfully, after outrage from the global community, the sentence was later overturned, but the point remains.
Is this 2011 or 1811? How can a modern nation – especially one so closely allied with the United States – still treat women like second-class citizens? Saudi Arabia’s traditions are more deeply entrenched than perhaps any other nation, and of course change will be slow, but the fact that King Abdullah is lauded as a crusader for women’s rights simply because he’s granted the vote and stayed a flogging is appalling. If the United States really valued its principles and democratic ideals, it would stand up for the women of Saudi Arabia. Or is our dependence on Saudi oil so great that we can’t risk endangering our supply by speaking out for human rights?
The women of Saudi Arabia deserve better, and soon.
