Saudi women banned as spectators to sport?

[EclecticShock]

Article here


Saudi men can only participate of accompanied by Saudi women...

[stmoritzsmells]

what's your point?

saudi is a ridiculous country and oppressive society to say in the least. I am a muslim and will be travelling there for Hajj one day, and nothing else. They do no favours in helping the rest of the world heap the hatred and fear on to Islam. I genuinely cannot be bothered to read the article.

[MiniTheMinx]

It says in that article that Saudi women are not allowed to undertake higher education, that is strange because there are women doctors in Saudi.

[TeiTetua]

The sentence "It's common knowledge that Saudi women are not allowed to pursue higher education, have major surgery or leave the country without their male guardian's written approval" is a little ambiguous. But I think it does say that Saudi women can go to college--if their male guardian approves.

[EclecticShock]

Yes, I'm confused... That's my point. Is the article accurate?

[sashh]

The article is accurate.

For years Saudi has only sent men to the olympics.

The international olympic committee has bannd Soudi from competing in London if they send a male only team. But if they send a mixed team they can compete. So Saudi has scrabbled around to find a couple of women to make the team mixed.

[kilmuir]

Not sure about the sport but they do access higher education

[namechangeguy]

I am afraid that while they have all that oil, not much will change. Oil buys you a lot of leeway in the international community.

[namechangeguy]

Agreed that Muslims have that attachment, but the non-Muslim world is dependent on the oil, and they are the ones who need to bring pressure to bear.

[TeiTetua]

Is it really true that Arabs from places other then Saudi Arabia disapprove of the way women are treated there? I've never heard of it, but maybe it's true. Women in Kuwait only got the right to vote (for whatever that's worth in Kuwait) in 2005, so you can hardly call that place a beacon of enlightenment.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

I'm a bit about this bit:

The pressure from the IOC on the Saudi government originated from outside the country. International human rights organisations have been raising the issue since 2009 in a bid to evoke the same positive reaction to the 21-year ban on South Africa that led to helping end racial apartheid there. In contrast very few Saudis have spoken in support of women participation. Within Saudi Arabia, social activists and national human rights organisations have other issues that they prioritise before Saudi women Olympians such as making child brides illegal, fighting judicial discrimination against women, lifting the ban on women driving, and opening more work opportunities to women.

Surely the ban on non-white olympic athletes in SA wasn't the main issue with apartheid? Of course there are more important issues for Saudi women, just as there were for black south africans under apartheid, but the olympics is a great chance to highlight what's going on in oppressive regimes and to apply international pressure for change.

This just sounds like more of the same old 'why are you focussing on this trivial issue, why are you not focussing on the real issues?' crap, that seems so commonly leveled at feminists.

[grimbletart]

Never underestimate the importance of sport. Because sport is universal it has the power to raise awareness and to shame, though admittedly Saudi men appear to be without the ability to feel shame as their treatment of women defies all logic and humanity.

Anyone on here remember the Basil D'Oliveira affair? He was a South African born English cricketer classified in South Africa as 'coloured' under apartheid. When he was picked for the English test squad to tour SA in 1968 Vorster (the SA PM) made it clear that it was unacceptable because he was coloured. The tour was cancelled. It had a massive impact in turning international opinion against apartheid and prompted changes in SA sport and eventually SA society. It was a real watershed moment.

[PlentyOfPubeGardens]

Yes they are big feminist issues, crescent, just as the things that were happening to non-white people under apartheid were big human rights issues, but that didn't stop us kicking up a stink about their non-participation in the olympics. The ban on SA participating in the olympics helped bring an end to that whole terrible system, even though sports participation was 'minor' compared to what else was going on.

[namechangeguy]

'Within Saudi Arabia, social activists and national human rights organisations have other issues that they prioritise before Saudi women Olympians.....'

If women (and men) within SA are prioritising and fighting these issues first, then they should be applauded and supported. I know this isn't how it's meant, but a bunch of Western people sat behind keyboards are not really in a position to do the prioritising for them. We should also bear in mind that the Olympics and its committee is, like FIFA and the World Cup, a sham and a corrupt organisation. Quite how people buy into it with the level of corruption, bribery and back-handers is mystifying to me, but I guess that is another topic.

[yellowraincoat]

I think the sentence about education was ambiguous - basically women can only go to university if they have their male guardian's permission. I taught at the women's university in Riyadh (or the "girls' university as it was known ) for a bit, and most of the women did come from more liberal families.

While I was there, women were banned from gyms. So while they sometimes take a couple of steps forward, they are forever taking steps back too.

The students I taught reassured me that they all got round most of the oppressive rules somehow and that most of them thought the rules were a bit stupid, so let's hope the next generation makes some progress.

[grimbletart]

yellow raincoat: I actually found your last sentence depressing i.e. the women thought the rules were "a bit stupid" and they "got round" them. A bit stupid? Got round them? Did they really have such a philosophical attitude?

Not sure how I can put this without sounding horrid, but these are presumably intelligent women. Were they not offended, angry, outraged at being treated as if they were children. Did it not occur to them that the Saudi men who made these rules had no right to do so, were arrogant, ego-ridden knob heads who thought men were some sort of Gods with the divine right to oppress and suppress half the population.

Sometime I think arming all women with guns and carte glance to use them against knob heads would get more results

[yellowraincoat]

grimbletart, maybe it's hard to understand, but the system is such in Saudi that describing the rules as anything other than "a bit stupid" might have got them (and me) into serious trouble. We shouldn't have been discussing societal rules and their flouting of them at all really.

Saudi is not the UK. They do not have freedom of speech. Were they angry? I imagine a lot of them were, but they had no way of voicing it because they are utterly controlled in everything they do. They can speak up, but they risk being thrown out of their family, being punished by state, forced out of university.

In those circumstances, what can they do except get round the rules that they can? It's easy to sit here in Britain and think "why don't they change stuff?" Well, they simply can't. They have so little power, and the majority just want to get on with their lives as best they can.

How can you possibly condemn them for that?

[grimbletart]

I know yellow raincoat. That's why I said I was being horrid. Of course I don't condemn them. I'm having a rant.

However, sooner or later they are going to need some martyrs if it is to change. Whatever happened to the women who flouted the driving ban by the way? Were they jailed. Do you know?

[yellowraincoat]

I'm not sure what happened. The driving thing wasn't the huge issue over there that it is in the west. Sure, they'd like it changed, but I suppose there's other things that bother them more.

I doubt they were jailed though. At the end of the day, the women involved in that protest were middle class and they'll have had some money flung at the prison service and any convictions will have melted away.

Things change very slowly in Saudi, but they are changing. It is a very new country and these things sometimes take a long time.

[nailak]

in some malls men cant get in without women

[yellowraincoat]

What's your point nailak? The reason men can't go in without women is because you can't go anywhere without men bothering you.

[kilmuir]

Which malls? Always saw men in the malls, may be the odd floor that is women only. Starting to have female shop assistants in lingerie shops which is a good thing