“I’m not proud to be a Saudi woman. Why
should I be proud of a country that is not proud of me?” (Human Rights Watch, 2008, p.2). These words
were uttered by one of the Saudi woman that is being discriminated in Saudi
Arabia. Presently, women in Saudi Arabia are facing serious discrimination
against their freedom where they need to request permission from their male
guardian in order to pursue education, accept wedding proposal, travel, and seek
employment. Furthermore, women in Saudi Arabia are banned completely from
driving, even though their male guardian accompanies them. According to Lobe
(2008), Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prohibits women from
driving automobiles (p.2). The current discrimination against women in this
country has negatively tarnished Saudi Arabia and Islam image in world
perspective. The discrimination problems that are faced by Saudi women in term
of male guardianship issue, bans from driving automobile and bias in education
will be analyzed in this paper. Finally, it is founds that Saudi Arabia can
gain a lot of comparative advantages in term of economic growth and social
perspective if the government take action to reevaluate its current gender
discrimination ruling and take aggressive action empower its women.
The
male guardianship ruling that restricts women’s rights of freedom in Saudi Arabia
is based on Islamic law that is decreed by the Consultative Assembly of Saudi
Arabia, the legislative body of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia employs Islamic law that
originated from Quran verses and the Prophets Muhammad’s customs (Sunna) as the basis of its constitution
and ruling (Al-Khateeb, 1998, p.117). Primarily,
the issue of male guardianship of women in Saudi Arabia is based on this vague
verse in the Quran, which asserts: "Men
are the protectors and maintainers of women, because God has given the one more
[strength] than the other, and because they support them from their means"
(Lobe, 2008, p.2). Saudi conservative policy makers
misconstrue this verse by inferring that men have full right to control women’s
freedom because men are more powerful than women are. The misconception about
this Quran verse leads to a serious discrimination against women freedom in
Saudi Arabia; Saudi women have no power to control their own fate, and their
individual liberty has been taken away because they are required to have male
guardianship permission to do their daily life activities that need them to get
out from their house.
The implementation of male
guardianship ruling has restricted the movement of Saudi women and lead
violence towards women. When a woman does not have
husband or male guardianship to give authorization to her, the issue gets more
complicated and restricts the woman’s freedom and movement. Fatma, 40
years old divorced woman whom father is dead cannot board a plane until her 23
years old son has to come all away from Eastern Province which is 500
miles away to give her authorization to leave the country (Human Right Watch, 2008,
p.2). This ruling violates the Article 13 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Right by United Nation that provides
“Everyone has the right to freedom of movement within the borders of each state
[and] the right to leave any country, including his own and to return to his
country” (Amnesty International, 2005, p.32).
Adult women were continuously treated like legal minors
by the Saudi authorities. Moreover, this ruling has led to serious
violence and harassment toward women by their male guardian. Statistic from Saudi’s
hospital reports that there are many cases where women are hospitalized because
of violence and harassment by their male guardian or husband (Bureau of Democracy, 2001, p.38). The violence towards women by their male guardian occurs
because the male have full power and rights toward women and usually, the women
are afraid to fight back or to report such abuse to authority. Farida
Deif, a women's rights activist in Middle East asserts, "The Saudi
government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women”
(Black, 2008, p.24). Conclusively, the implementation
of male guardian ruling has negatively affected women in Saudi Arabia; they do
not have their own freedom, and the ruling has lead to mistreatment toward
women.
When analyzing the issue of male
guardianship and gender equality in Saudi Arabia, the perception of equality by
Saudi women need to be considered. Surprisingly, according to Al-Khateeb (1998),
in her case study research about how women in Saudi Arabia perceive gender equality,
79.3 percent of her research participants did not support equality between male
and female and they feel comfortable with the current male guardianship ruling
(p.117). Al-Khateeb (1998) further explains the reason behind this data by
asserting that Saudi women are more privileged than women in the Western
country, where women are required to work to support themselves while, in Saudi
Arabia, as stated in Islamic law, it is the men’s responsibility to support
women (p. 124). Even though the data from Al-Khateeb’s study shows that, the
Saudi women are pleased with the existing discrimination ruling. On the other hand, the facts that Saudi women’s rights of
freedom are dishonored and women are treated violently are far more critical.
According to Human Right Watch (2008), the obligation of male guardianship is
the prevalent obstruction for the process of empowering women and Saudi Arabia
economic growth (cited in Anonymous, 2008, p. 68). It
is worthless for a woman to live wealthily, but do not have any rights and
power for their own sake.
In addition to male guardianship
ruling, Saudi government also bans women from driving cars. The public decree
that prohibits women from driving automobiles has led to serious negative financial
and social impact toward Saudi Arabia. According to Henderson (2005), the current ratification by Saudi Arabia to employ one
million men immigrant (usually form India or Philipines) chauffeur to drive Saudi women is a huge economic
burden by Saudi’s government (p.2). Moreover, this act
contradicts with Islamic Law that forbids women to mix with non mehram [1].
In point of fact, there are no Quran verse or sunnah that fobid women from driving cars. According to Foundation
(1994), the driving ban was pushed by the
the conservative Islamic scholar, the late Shaikh 'Abd al-‘Aziz to avoid fitna [2](p.49). There are also certain
individuals and groups that agree to prohibit women from driving automobile.
They assert that by permitting women to drive in Saudi Arabia, it would
generate even greater financial burden to their family because they would have
to buy new cars frequently because “women are known to like everything
new”(Henderson, 2005, p.2). This
argument claims to be so sexist and inappropriate because of negative
perception towards women.
The ruling that
forbids women to drive in Saudi Arabia not only will cause huge economic burden
to Saudi’s government, but also will
restrict women employment opportunities in that kingdom. Women that need to travel from their home to their jobplace
will face with huge problem because there are no efficient public
transportation availabe in Saudi Arabia, so most of the women need to set aside
a big percentage of their salary just to hire a driver that will enable them to
be in the workplace. For example, if a woman janitor gets 1500 SR
[US$400] per month, it is estimated that 30 percent of her salary will go
toward transportation. This situation forced the business owner to increase the
wages of its women employees to reimburse for their transportation costs (Human
Right Watch,2008, p.19). The consequence of this
situation is, more businessowners tend to employ male workers rather than women
workers because of transportation issue. Evidently, the ruling to ban women
from driving automobiles have negatively affects Saudi Arabia in term of
economy and women employment opportunities.
Besides the
imposition of male guardianship and prohibting women from driving, gender
discimination in education sector is one of the most critical issue in Saudi
Arabia. Women are legally discriminated to obtain the same educational quality
and status as men; the women’s educational facilities and academic curiculum are
inferior to men’s educational infrastructure and syllabus (Mills, 2009, p.11).
Moreover, women are not allowed to enroll in popular program like engineering,
geology, medicine and political science in the public universities(Human Right
Watch, 2008, p.15). These discriminations restrict and hinder Saudi Arabia
economic potential because its human capital, in this case women, are not fully
utilized to drive Saudi Arabia growth. King Abdullah, the monarchy
leader of Saudi Arabia says that skillful human capital especially women are
needed to expand Saudi Arabia’s economy and to reduce its dependence on oil
resources (Mills, 2009, p.11). By giving more power and
education to women, Saudi Arabia will able to tap the unexploited resources to accelerates its economic and
social progress in the world arena.
Even though gender
discrimination still occurs in Saudi Arabia’s education sector, many experts
believes that Saudi Arabia has accomplish sucessful result in the effort to
educate women compared to 50 years ago. According to Pharaon (2004), education for
women in Saudi Arabia are only available after 1960 (p.359). Progressively, at
the higher education level, the number of women graduates has raised radically
and, in a certain area such as humanity and social sciences, the number of
women enrolled in these programs exceed the number of men (Pharaon, 2004, p.359).
However, despite of the number of women graduates
increase, the main problem is, there are only few employment position are availabe
for women in the work industry. Human Right Watch (2008) reports that
only 4 percent of total employees in Saudi Arabia are women (p.17). Moreover,
there are certain cases where women are not allowed to join certain industry
even though they are given authorization to study the program. For example, in
2008, the first batch of women law student have graduated, but the Ministry of
Justice insists not to give legal license and proffesional status to these
women (Anonymous, 2008, p.68). This action shows the
irony in the process of empowering women. It is inefficient and unjust to treat
women in this condition.
In order to achieve a better environment in Saudi Arabia in
term of economic and social stability, the inequality gap between men and women
must be abolished. King Abdullah, comments on gender equality,
"Saudi Arabia cannot progress economically or socially without giving more
power to women" (Mills, 2009, p.11). Coleman (2010) also asserts that
it is important to uphold the status of women because it is a
key for healthy global economic growth. It is clear that
by empowering women, Saudi Arabia can gain a lot of economic benefits that will
impel and heighten Saudi Arabia status in the world perspective. Saudi Arabia must prepare itself from being too dependent on
oil resources as their solely gross domestic product generator by utilize and
empower its women cababilities. So, Saudi Arabia should reevalute its current
rulling that discriminates women in order to move forward. However, the process
of integrating and empowering women in Saudi Arabia is such a complex issue
that overlaps with religion and culture. Nevertheless, the process of empowering
women in this country must be done in a cautious way to avoid conflict and
argument between its citizen.
Quality needs equality. It is apparent that women discrimination
in Saudi Arabia in term of male guardianship ruling, bans from driving automobiles, and prejudice in education
have negatively affected Saudi Arabia in term of economic and social stability.
As mention before, Saudi Arabia should take assertive action to empower its
women because women are the most valuable asset that can help to elevate Saudi
Arabia economic growth and national image.
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