Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving, and the kingdom was ranked 134 out of 145 countries in gender parity in 2015, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report.
Editor’s note: Names of Saudi students have been changed to protect identities.
Under the system of male guardianship in Saudi Arabia, a woman’s father, husband, brother or even son can dictate whether or not she can study, work, travel and more. This system applies to all Saudi women, regardless of age, with varying degrees of strictness depending on the leniency of her guardian.
Nadav Samin, a senior lecturer in history at Dartmouth College who has done extensive research on Saudi culture, told The Ball State Daily News that religious law and Saudi social norms interact to construct the specific features of the Saudi guardianship system.
“To take the example of marriage, Islamic law recognizes the right of male guardians to direct the marital choices of Muslim women,” he said. “Yet the marriage options available to both men and women are often determined more by informal cultural norms than by religious law.”
Saudi Arabia is also the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving, and the kingdom was ranked 134 out of 145 countries in gender parity in 2015, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report.
Nadia, a Saudi graduate student studying at Ball State, believes it will be hard to readapt to her Saudi lifestyle, describing it as “not even freedom.”
During her studies in the U.S., she has obtained her driver’s license, purchased a car and participated in extracurricular activities at Ball State. She is worried she will lose her newfound independence once she goes back home.
The unbalance in equality between men and women isn’t solely isolated to Saudi Arabia. Women in the United States, for example, are continuously advocating for equal rights and pay. Still, when compared to Western standards, Saudi Arabia has ways to go.
EDUCATION
Nadia went through a divorce with her husband because he wasn’t happy with her studying abroad.
"He thought I was going to accept that way of treatment because I’m Saudi,” she said.
The graduate student believes a woman who is more educated than her spouse is a cause for many of the divorces in her country.
“[A woman] can work and take care of her kids [and], at the same time, do her classes and homework,” Nadia said. “Some men [do] not like that, or maybe that makes him stressed that he can't."
Nadia also believes it varies from family to family on how extreme the measures of guardianship are.
"I think it's part of the education, part of how [men] are raised in the family. If they respect [women] when they are kids, they will respect [women] in marriage," she said.
In 2005, King Abdullah and President Bush worked together to improve the relationship between Saudis and Americans, creating a scholarship program called the King Abdullah Scholarship Program.
This brought higher numbers of Saudi students to the United States, and Nadia believes this will have an influence on her country in the future.
"I think the new generation who studies [in the United States], maybe in 10 years, we are going to have a different system," she said.
She believes Saudi students, both women and men, who study abroad and have had interactions with the opposite sex will go back home with a different mindset.
She also believes the government of Saudi Arabia wants the system of male guardianship to end.
"Of course they know what's going to happen in the country when [this generation] comes back from [schools in Western countries],” Nadia said.
SEPARATION
Mustafa, a Saudi man and graduate student at Ball State student, believes there are good and bad components of the male guardianship system.
“I think it's good because this will make families more strong and more together, and the father will feel like he is in charge and he will help his family more I think,” he said.
He said satisfying one’s father and mother is more important in Saudi Arabia than everything else.
“For example, one of my brothers, when he graduated from school, he wanted to go out of our city and my father said, ‘No, you have to stay,’” he said. “For men, it's kind of optional. For girls, it's not optional.”
He also thinks the system of male guardianship can help protect one’s children.
“Maybe the kids [will] just go out to a new city or something [and] they will go do bad things,” he said.
Mustafa isn’t opposed to more rights for women, though. When he was in his country he taught his sister how to drive in the mountains where others couldn’t see them.
Although Mustafa believes that women should be able to drive, there is one reason why he is against it.
“The law should protect women,” he said. “It's not like in America [where] everywhere there are cameras, security is so high. In Saudi Arabia, it is not as good.”
Instead of making it legal for women to drive, Mustafa thinks the government should create stronger laws that protect women from harassment.
The kingdom has pushed to address this issue by passing a law that criminalizes domestic violence against women and creating a center for reporting domestic violence.
In Saudi Arabia, the segregation of the sexes is common in all corners of life: in work, in school and in public. Mustafa believes this is one of the causes of divorce in the country.
In 2015, more than 40,000 divorces were granted in the kingdom, according to the Saudi Gazette, which is only a slightly higher rate than the U.S. divorce rate.
“There is a lot of divorce in Saudi Arabia because most [men] don’t know how to deal with women,” he said.
Mustafa feels like one major reason for the separation of sexes in most walks of life is due to the religious conservatives in the country that have influence in the government. He believes the ruling family wants change, but it has to be careful about causing controversy.
“[The ultraconservatives] try to defend their opinion by using the religion and tell people, ‘This is against the religion.’ So the government, they are kind of scared of them or maybe they don’t want to make problems so they have to listen to them,” Mustafa said. “They have to change it slowly.”
Additionally, he believes the Saud family — the family that has ruled the country since its founding in 1932 — is worried the religious conservatives could gather and protest against them.
“I think Islamic religion is easier than [the ultraconservatives] explain it — they make it more complicated,” Mustafa said. “You can make rules from the Quran, but they make it so specific and it makes Islam kind of hard, especially [for] women.”
Samin, the lecturer at Dartmouth College, believes the religious scholars see themselves as upholding Saudi religious norms as a reflection of the will of the majority of Saudis.
“We can't know for sure, but what is clear is that these religious scholars are not leading any progressive reforms on women's rights. They are leading from behind, if you will,” he said.
COOPERATION
Nasser, a Saudi graduate student at Ball State who supports the movement to end male guardianship, first interacted with women after he graduated from a Saudi university and started working at a hospital.
Hospitals in the country are one of the spaces where men and women work together.
“I just worked on the computer like a medical coordinator. Most of my colleagues were women,” he said. “I think because of our boss, he was more open-minded, and he wanted us to interact with each other.”
One day when Nasser was working at the hospital, he received a call from a man who needed his papers processed.
“I wanted to transfer him to my colleague who was a female — it was an easy job, she was going to process his papers,” he said. “He refused, he told me, ‘Don’t refer me to a woman.’ He told me, ‘I want you to do this for me.’”
Nasser thinks people like the caller need to change their thinking and be more open to working with the opposite sex.
“I believe that men and women, if they don’t become brothers and sisters and work together, they won’t [be able to] change the community,” Nasser said.
Samin said oil wealth has transformed the nature of gender relations and in the past women and men had complementary roles in the economy, like date palm cultivators or nomadic herders.
"After oil, the requirement for women to work diminished, and an ethos of glorifying female seclusion and gender segregation became emphasized," he said.
PROGRESSION
Laila, a Saudi woman and student at Ball State, described her life as an exception to the norm in Saudi Arabia because she studied in London as a child.
“When I was in the second grade, my father had to go to London, and I went there and I started learning English, so of course that changed my perspective," she said.
In the fourth grade, she traveled to Houston for the same reason, which opened a lot of doors for her.
"I was exposed to different cultures that other Saudi girls were not," she said. “My family is open-minded. I can actually have a conversation and convince them.”
Even so, Laila had to have her father sign for consent when she married.
“If you like that person and your father does not want you to marry them, then you can't," she said.
Laila’s husband, who is now her primary guardian, was open to his wife studying abroad. He currently resides in Muncie with her.
"My husband hasn't been out of the country. This is his first time out of the country, and I just took him to America," she said.
Laila thinks the system of male guardianship not only affects women, but it also impacts men.
"The way I think about it is that this is exhausting for men. It’s crippling for women and exhausting for men because they have to do everything for women in life," she said.
Since she has been in America, she has learned how to drive and has obtained her driver’s license. Laila said she feels good about herself that her husband doesn’t have to drive her to stores, pay for her or drive her home.
Her view on driving is different when it comes to her native country.
“Even if I could drive in Saudi Arabia, it’s too hot and I would eventually get a chauffeur,” she said. “I want to use my time better to work on my stuff, and he can do the minimal job of driving in the sun cause our hands kind of get dark. I'm worried about that."
When the topic of the segregation of the sexes came up, Laila explained her experience in the Saudi school system. She remembers seeing her male professor on a TV, and nowadays some classrooms have a two-way mirror.
"If we need to hand in a paper we can go to a room that has kind of a small mailbox where you can hand in the paper and he takes it from the other side but he doesn't see us," Laila said.
Laila has worked at a Saudi university and recalls several instances where her female colleagues would get their husbands to talk on their behalf to the male department head.
“It doesn't make sense to me," she said. "If I needed something, I talked to them. I find no problem, I’m not going to get seduced or whatever, come on. It's just, you're doing work."
Even with her progressive view on male guardianship, Laila said she was glad her first child was a boy because he can give her permission to travel, he can drive and he can deal with legal paperwork for her.
“When you have children, you prefer boys because they can give you an advantage. If you have four girls, your [husband] has to take care of you and four girls; it's a lot of responsibility," she said.
REFORMATION
Even with all the obstacles Saudi women face, there has been some reforms in the country’s government and its plan for the future.
In 2013, King Abdullah appointed 30 women to the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia, a government entity that can propose laws to the king. The assembly has a total of 150 members, and a fifth of the members must be women, according to the assembly’s website.
In late 2015, women also gained the right to vote and run as candidates in municipal council elections. This may be viewed as a victory for women, but many still have to work around the guardianship system to participate.
The future of Saudi Arabia, detailed in the country’s vision for 2030, states, “Saudi women are yet another great asset. With over 50 percent of our university graduates being female, we will continue to develop their talents, invest in their productive capabilities and enable them to strengthen their future and contribute to the development of our society and economy.”
Even with all these reforms, the country has a lot to do to catch up with other parts of the world.
For now, Laila, the saudi graduate student who grew up in a less restrictive family, feels likes the best way for women in Saudi Arabia to overcome the guardianship system is to be persuasive and not fight against it.
"I think in my country you have to learn the art of winning over the males, your husband and your son,” she said. “It's an art. It's easier for you if you convince them to do what you want rather than fighting. You cannot fight it. This is our country. It works, I guess."
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