Taught for centuries that God wanted members of their sex to stay home, Saudi Arabian women have been shocked in recent days to open their newspapers and find pictures of female American soldiers roaming about their country.
Shocked-and excited.
”Maybe it will start more people here thinking about how we women could be used to ease our own Saudi labor shortage,” says an oil-company employee- and a wife and mother-whom I know in Dhahran.
”If nothing else, we could take certain jobs that would release our men for other work.”
The Saudi government is thinking along the same lines.
Earlier this month King Fahd, in a directive aimed at freeing more men for military service, ordered government agencies to ”accept those women volunteers who present themselves to carry on duties in the areas of human services and medical services within the context of fully preserving Islamic and social values.” For a culture that until a few years ago strictly prohibited any public contact between men and women, and still requires women to wear concealing garments in public, the edict was striking in that it came from the highest authority in this conservative Moslem society, not from the liberal fringe that has for years pressed for a greater role for women.
Saudi women have long been free to serve other women as nurses, gynecologists or teachers in girls schools. Now female doctors and nurses may be able to care for male hospital patients or work as clerks in banks and stores with male clienteles. There is even talk about women helping ambulance and firefighting units.
”Before the crisis with Iraq, this would have been blasphemy,” a Saudi government official said.
But any male American soldier headed for duty in the kingdom may as well forget any ideas about coming back home with a Saudi bride.
Even if GIs could get away from their bases, some of which are in remote desert areas, any social mixing, much less dating, with Saudi women would be impossible. Saudis don`t allow this among those from their own society. It would be unthinkable with foreigners.
Most Saudi marriages are alliances between families, although Islamic law gives a woman the right to approve or reject her family`s choice.
Other marriage customs might also appear curious to American eyes. Legally, a Moslem man can have four wives at once, but only if he can give each wife equal material goods and equal time. So for economic reasons, monogamy is the norm.
Divorce rates are on the rise. Women have the right to divorce for certain reasons, though the male-dominated society can make this difficult. By contrast, a man can still divorce his wife by saying ”I divorce you” in front of a witness. He does not have to state any reason.
Sweltering for tradition
Meanwhile, female GIs used to Western ways are chafing under Saudi customs. Although they can conduct business as usual while inside their military compounds, from piloting jumbo transport jets to driving forklifts, they are not allowed to drive off base.
They must be accompanied by men on shopping trips, and must look demurely toward the floor when dealing with Saudi shopkeepers.
In addition, though male U.S. air crews strip to T-shirts to work on planes in 120-degree heat, their female colleagues must swelter in full-battle dress to avoid offending Saudi sensibilities.
Still, photos in the Arab News and other local newspapers of American servicewomen driving trucks or working side by side with their male counterparts are heartening to many Saudi women who want an end to their restrictions.
For other women, the photos cause concern.
A hairstylist in the city of Jidda told a Wall Street Journal reporter that her clients complain constantly about U.S. servicewoman: ”Not a single one approves of the women soldiers. Everyone is sure they are here to provide sex for the servicemen, or, worse, to steal our husbands.”
Swept by modernization
In 1945, when I accompanied my Saudi husband to live with his large extended family, the kingdom was, for the most part, unknown to the rest of the world. And the rest of the world was unknown to most Saudis.
Illiteracy was high. Nomads outnumbered settled folk. The economy was barely subsistence level. Women were homebodies because society demanded they be.
And there was nowhere to go in those days, anyway, nothing for us to do except don cloak and veil and be driven to visit other women.
But in the 1950s, things began changing. Bankrolled by revenue from the oil discovered in Arabia in the late 1930s, Saudi Arabia has proceeded at a pace perhaps unparalleled in history to produce the wonders of development, modernization, telecommunication, industrialization and education.
But today`s Saudi woman still cannot board an airplane or check into a hotel without written permission from a male relative.
She may not drive a car.
She is forbidden by custom to have her picture taken.
”As for women driving, some people talk about it,” said a woman with a doctoral degree.
”But most feel that driving here is very dangerous, and initially for women would be as disastrous as when men started.
”Accident factor aside, it would be worse because men unaccustomed to seeing women drive would follow and bother. It would be great sport!”
Religious directives for the faithful emanate from a powerful body of Islamic scholars called the ulama, who cling tenaciously to societal codes, particularly regarding the decency and morality of women. Public-morality committees, the regional Societies for the Preservation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, ensure strict compliance with religious requirements and what pass for religious requirements.
Salaried morals police patrol the public domain, making sure that businesses close at prayer times and that women are properly covered and observe the off-limits signs on such places as popular disco-music cassette shops, where mingling might lead to assignations.
Chic beneath the cloak
Despite all this, veils are falling away.
It may not look like much to the ”liberated” Western eye, but women are doing things now that were unimaginable when I was raising my young family there.
For one thing, women are appearing in public in mixed company. Married couples shop together, dine in restaurants and enjoy family picnics on the shores of the Red Sea. It is a notable difference from the days of men with men in public and women with women in homes.
Then, women on the streets of downtown Jiddah still wore long cloaks, called abayas. When I lived there, we had to be covered from the hair on our heads to our toes.
Now it`s somewhat more relaxed. Some women go downtown with their faces uncovered. Veils, if worn, may bear the insignia of Paris designers.
I recently attended a wedding at a big Saudi Arabian hotel. In the old days, when we would walk into such an affair, we left our cloaks and veils at the door. It was a real problem getting them back, because they all looked alike. Now they put your veil and cloak in a paper bag with a number on it, and you claim it when you leave. Wonderful!
The veil and cloak might be hiding a high-society lady in haute couture, a high-schooler togged in blue jeans and T-shirt, or a villager in colorful cotton. Anything goes, but the outer layer-with slight variations, perhaps-remains the same.
It is a shock to see sedate cloaked figures peeling to leotards in a fitness center to do routines popular the world over.
Well-to-do Saudis not only are extremely chic dressers, but they enjoy parties. Couples join good friends in each others` homes with astonishing frequency, three or four times a week, making a shared, enjoyable little world within the bigger, confining one around them.
At some large gatherings, every top fashion house in the world might be represented. Today`s educated women might still wear veils and be wives and mothers. But they are also teachers, computer technicians, social workers, laboratory technicians, physicists, engineers, bankers and filmmakers.
Although most work in all-female facilities, some doctors, nurses, administrators, radio announcers and journalists work with men. Long skirts, long sleeves and head scarves are customary for women on the job.
”There is no problem,” one hospital worker told me. ”We are well accepted and get the same pay, and men here want more women in jobs, appreciating our efforts and respecting the levels of education that put us here.”
In some families, the tradition of male domination is still severely enforced, though not in most of the well-educated families.
Many women, now able to read the Koran for themselves, are finding that many of the prohibitions men have cited for centuries aren`t found in the scriptures.
Saudi women know that more cultural changes are coming. But they are fully aware of how far they already have come in such a short time.
To the rest of the world, many aspects of their culture may appear backward. But the women I know feel they`ve made big steps, and they are willing to wait patiently for more.
