Saudi Arabia Women

In order for Saudi Arabian culture to have adopted such a mentality they must have had large amounts of people - particularly males - with the same belief in extreme modesty and male superiority. If at the inception of the Saudi Arabian culture individuals believed females were inferior to males, Saudi Arabian culture must have adopted policies that implied male superiority and misogyny. The means by which cultures create consensus upon shared beliefs such as male superiority and misogyny is to make the shared beliefs into a generally accepted ideology or law. Laws are made of rules; they determined “how the [ideology of gender roles] was formulated, applied and implemented” (Yahyaoui 38). In order to make particular gender roles a generally accepted Saudi Arabian ideology, the ideology must have been supported by laws both directly and indirectly. One form of direct control of women is religious police or vigilante. Women aren’t allowed to socialize, act, or dress in a fashion that isn’t considered appropriate. In order to ensure that no woman is behaving outside of what the culture condones, Saudi Arabian males created

In the United States in 2016, women were paid 80 percent of what men were paid (Kevin Miller, The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap). Women are still treated as second hand to men to this day, but we have come a far way since the sixteenth century European women. Women can go to school, work, and have lives in the United States. In other countries and cultures, however, women still have a long fight ahead of them. In Saudi Arabia, women were just recently granted the ability to drive (Nicole Gaouette and Elise Labott, CNN). This is a huge stepping stone for women in Saudi Arabia and many more countries. The guardianship rule in Saudi Arabia is still ongoing, stating that women cannot make any decision without a man or young boy telling her yes or no. Women have no freedom for making their own choices, but their chains will soon be loosened through newly imprinted laws. Just like in the home, European women and Native American women vary greatly in societal structure and cultures.

The men in Saudi Arabia have more rights and power than the women. Men are the ones who have the most influence and the women are the ones who must listen to what the man says. Of course, this is different from man to man but mostly they are all like that.

Accustomed to stereotypical depictions, Westerners are told that Middle Eastern women are passive, weak, and always veiled. It is often assumed that the severe conditions in Saudi Arabia—where women are not even allowed to drive cars—represent the norm for women throughout the Middle East and in the larger Muslim world. In reality, Saudi Arabia’s versions of both Islam and sexism are rather unique in their severities, although the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan is now emulating the sexist Saudi model. Women enjoy political and social rights in many Muslim countries, and Egypt has recently granted women the right to divorce their husbands. In Tunisia, abortion is legal, and polygamy is prohibited. Women have served as ministers in the Syrian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi, and Tunisian governments, and as Vice President in Iran.

Like many other laws in Saudi Arabia, the law to wear the abaya was picked from a few verses of the Koran – ones that were appealing to the king. The fact is that religious books contradict themselves, and if you want to take one verse about modesty from the Koran, then you must consider them all. The point of the abaya is to protect women from unacceptable male attention and sexual harassment. However, some say that it does exactly the opposite, by adding mystery. Within Saudi society, the abaya often carries with it a certain perception of how the woman wearing it should act: walk politely, avoid eye-contact, talk in a low voice, etc. The ideal honorable and proper Saudi woman would present herself as the perfectly molded, mysterious, religious, and modest woman. Interestingly, the older generation of Saudi women was not required to wear abayas. Although no answer has been found after much research of when the abaya was implemented, I believe it may have been enforced in the 1970s. Presently, it has been viewed in religious terms. Some women have been so brainwashed that they will say they are

Sadly, views of people in some of countries nowadays is still as foggy and limited as the people’s views thousand years ago. Having studied these laws, we learned that we need to respect women and honour them. They are very well deserved to be treated fairly, and to be looked up to. Hopefully in the near future, the legal system in Muslim countries will be changed in a positive way to foster the roles of women in the society. Women should have more freedom and should not considered as a tool of labor or a slave for

In “News Coverage of a Woman’s Rights Campaign,” Saudi women are driving even though it is against the law and they could be thrown in jail. The women consider driving as a right that they should have. Mrs. Qahtani said, “I woke up believing with every part of me that this is my right, I woke up believing this is my duty, and I was no longer afraid,” (Collections 123 lines 19-20). Since men in Saudi Arabia can drive, they don’t understand what the women are going though. “Women in Saudi Arabia see other women in the Middle East making revolutions, women in Yemen and Egypt at the forefront of revolutions, being so bold, toppling over entire governments… The women of Saudi Arabia looked at themselves and they realized, ‘Wow! We can’t even drive,” (Collections 124 lines 43-49). The Saudi women want to make a revolution, they want to be able to do what the men can

A common misconception is that Muslim women are oppressed all around the world, but this is a fallacy created through the use of propaganda and misinformation. The so-called "oppression of women" is not a characteristic of Islam at all and to say otherwise would be out of ignorance. Reza Aslan (2015), a scholar of all religions, makes it clear that oppression of women is not related to Islam but to particular countries. A common propaganda technique is to use Saudi Arabia as the standard of Islam. This could not be further from the truth, as many Muslim countries view women equally if not beyond that. There are dozens of Muslim countries who have had more female heads of state than the US; Algeria, Turkey, Sudan, Senegal. There are a handful of Muslim countries around the world, who mention women's equal rights in their constitution, whereas the U.S is one of 32 countries who does not include an explicit gender equality guarantee (Ravitz, 2015). Using an uneducated generalization, that holds no merit, causes inconsistencies and mistaken impressions of a particular

Women are denied many basic human rights, along with the ability to partake in many activities that us as Westerners would consider to be rights, simply because of their gender. The most infamous example is Saudi’s ban on women driving cars. This takes away a woman’s independence and therefore makes her further dependent on males. The stratification doesn’t stop there however; the enrollment in academic institutions is strictly contingent on the approval of the male guardians. This means women can be denied the basic right to an education if their male guardian so chooses, with no ability to protest. Women are then further marginalized in the work force. According to the Saudi labor code, “women shall work in all fields suitable to their nature.” Although this law is vague in terms of what these fields are, it is clear that this piece of legislation further restricts women’s rights in Saudi Arabia. Women also have severe restrictions on their legal rights. Females in Saudi Arabia must be granted permission from their male guardian in order to sue or take a case to court. This makes it virtually impossible to prevent domestic abuse, as the perpetrator is the one who must grant permission to get the legal procedures started. This puts women at a seriously compromised and defensively position creating further stratification between males and

When we look back through history you will find a timeline of events showing exactly when women gained certain rights and for what. Most of these events occurred in the late 1800’s and all throughout the 1900’s. Since 2000 the women of Saudi Arabia have gained 9 new rights even being as small as being able to have an ID.Ever since the rule of King Fahd the rights of women in Saudi Arabia have been growing, although some of the rights might seem little but

It is not hard for a woman to feel that the country is discriminating against her. In fact, I believe that is what made the video store incident to me, a “stupid” thing, not a something that I should cry over. What is more, No women in Saudi Arabia

In the past, Islamic women were not granted the right to vote or join in politics, but over the years the legal status of women in Islam has relaxed and changed. Muslim women in the Middle East have the right to vote, and may join in politics. Along with this, they are permitted to have vital government jobs. (Braswell, p.155) A woman 's status , however, is not as high as a man 's is in society. They still must follow many traditional customs. An example of one custom is that women are encouraged to do is dress modestly, by wearing veils in public. (Lippman, p.38) Although Muslim men and women are not looked upon as equals in every sense, there has been a lot of improvement and many changes have been made in the women 's favor.

A veil is a piece of sheer material worn by women to conceal their faces, that very piece of material symbolizes sacredness. In traditional Christian religion the veil is worn by the bride in white on her wedding day as she approaches her groom at the alter. He uncovers her face at the end of the ceremony and they kiss. Once that tradition is done the bride and the groom live their lives together without her ever having to wear the veil again. However, In the Muslim religion predominantly in Saudi Arabia the veil is also considered sacred, but used for different purposes. For the women of Saudi Arabia wearing the veil is part of their everyday life. In fact it is forbidden for them not to wear it, their veil is worn routinely. The women of Saudi should know that living behind the veil is a form of abuse toward them. A life in front of the veil is more enjoyable and liberating. Just because they walk in the street without their veil does not make them promiscuous nor should they be punished for it.

In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive. But on October 26, 2013, several women in Saudi Arabia peacefully disobeyed this regulation. Women in many different cities got behind the steering wheel and filmed a video of themselves driving. They then uploaded these videos on YouTube. The women weren't taken to police stations.

The women of Saudi Arabia have been oppressed by the men of the country for generations due to the ignorance of the people, their Islamic faith, and the government. They have no rights and they must receive permission from their husbands or fathers to work, travel, and receive medical attention. The memoir Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia by Jean Sasson, is an excellent example of the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and the literary devices of characterization and setting help to bring the oppression to life.