The increasing freedoms and flexibilities Saudi women enjoy today offer a few pertinent lessons in social practices and behavior with respect to religious practices
I have been teaching (and researching) for more than 10 years at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, the top university in Saudi Arabia and the entire Arab region in the Middle East, according to the current QS World University Rankings. I have witnessed an impressive transformation and change here, especially related to women’s development and emancipation.
There are various meanings of emancipation but in this essay, the term means a process of giving people social, cultural, educational and economic rights and freedom, liberating them from the stern control of other groups including parents, political authorities, and religious establishments.
When I first arrived in Saudi Arabia, conservatism was still the dominant culture and practice in society. Public areas and facilities were strictly segregated by gender. There were female and male rooms or family and single areas in restaurants, cafes, public transportation, and workplaces.
As for clothing, women wore black abayas and veils (niqab and other forms), except for girls. There were no concerts or other performing arts shows, and no movie theaters.
Moreover, the religious police or enforcers, known as Mutaween, were deployed throughout the country, especially in urban areas. Their main job was to enforce conservative Islamic values and norms of public behavior and practice, as defined by Saudi religious authorities, especially the Hai‘a (Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice).
They also watched over women who did not wear hijab in public places. If they saw women not wearing abaya and hijab in public, they would catch and lecture them. My colleague’s wife, a Westerner, once had this unpleasant experience.
Saudi women’s roles and participation in public affairs were uncommon. With a few exceptions, almost all public facilities (shopping malls, markets, higher educational institutions, etc.) were controlled and staffed by men.
My university was also entirely populated, dominated and staffed by men, except in housing compounds for faculty members and their families. However, during King Salman’s reign from 2015 to the present, everything began to change dramatically and massively.
As government-led social reforms swept the kingdom, views of public areas also shifted vividly. Today, Saudi women are everywhere. They can now apply for jobs and professions in all sectors that were previously available and designated only for men.
In the past, particularly since the 1980s, women were limited to jobs like schoolteachers, nurses, or lecturers at female-only universities and colleges, such as Effat University or Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University. Now, the government has set a quota system for women for all types of employment in companies, schools, universities, shopping malls, airports, and others.
Those that do not implement this policy will be given government sanctions, while those that reach this quota will receive government incentives or bonuses. Accordingly, employers are trying their best to achieve the government’s mandate by giving priority to women for certain jobs or at least equal chances for both men and women.
In recent years, my university also started accepting female students, administrative staff, researchers and professors.
Other effects of the sociocultural reforms and women’s emancipation policies include the absence of gender-based public segregation. Restaurants, cafés and other places are no longer divided according to gender. Additionally, women’s fashion is more flexible yet modest. Black abayas are no longer dominant, and stores have started selling colorful abayas. Interestingly, many Saudi women also wear “loose hijab” (such as kerudung, or headscarf) to cover their hair.
Concerts, whether for classical or contemporary music and from orchestra to hip-hop, are held at various public events. Saudi citizens and residents can now enjoy music that was previously considered haram by conservative religious groups. The Saudi government has also opened movie theatres across the kingdom.
Equally important, it has shut down the religious police institution that was established in 1940. What is happening in Saudi nowadays is not entirely new. Before the Sahwa, which literally means Islamic Awakening, when militant religious groups became part of the government and controlled religious discourses and cultural practices in the early 1980s, Saudi society enjoyed some relative freedoms and flexibilities, including women’s employment in public sectors. Music, movies, theater and other artistic forms were accessible in public venues. Women’s dress was moderate and was not dominated by black.
Things started changing dramatically when the kingdom embraced the Sahwa movement and granted hard-line religious groups a bigger role in government and society. Fueled by an extreme religious ideology and interpretations, combined with unchecked powers, this group became the “watchdog” of social practices and behavior for more than 30 years.
A few things can be learned from the Saudi development. First, religious practices cannot just be imposed from top to bottom. Second, no society, including conservative societies, is immune from social change. Humans are fluid and changing animals, not fixed and unchanging, that can easily shift to different practices. Third, religious discourses, doctrines and practices are the product of interpretations and understandings of political and religious actors (agencies) in society.
Therefore, the type of religious (and political) actors will determine, shape and influence the forms of religious discourses, doctrines and practices in society.
Source: The Jakarta Post (12 July 2024). https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2024/07/12/lessons-from-womens-emancipation-in-saudi-arabia.html
