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AIBU?

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Original poster

Saudi Arabia

168 replies

MagicFinger · 12/12/2015 19:19

Ok, not strictly Aibu, but I've had no answers on chat and I really want to learn about it.

I was reading about Saudi women being allowed to vote for the first time today and googled photos of Saudi.

There appear to be women in the streets without a male escort and some with their heads uncovered.

I was wondering how these laws for women work in practice and whether it is actually as strict as it is portrayed in the West?

OP posts:
ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 14/12/2015 14:34

was it always this strict???

TrueBlueYorkshire · 14/12/2015 14:38

When my colleague was working there as an engineer some of his Saudi colleagues took him to a football match. Before the match started a woman was brought out onto the field, they announced that she was sentenced to death for Adultery and commenced to cut her head off in the middle of the stadium. He quit and came home that week.

KERALA1 · 14/12/2015 15:09

A colleague went there and brought some leaflets back from a conference.
The content was horrendous. Any unmarried woman was a whore. London was full of whores, sluts etc. This was a professional conference I worked in project finance.

I was a single woman in London myself at the time and actually felt quite upset that whole swathes of people I had never met held these awful opinions about my friends and I quietly living our lives doing no harm to anyone. Chilling.

Totally agree with the comparison with apartheid. Why is it acceptable if "only" women.

slug · 14/12/2015 16:49

My cousin worked for there a while. His comment was "You go in with two buckets. One for the money and one for the shit. When one of these buckets is full, you leave". He lasted 2 months.

His other comment was how easy it was to totally forget that women exist. His only interaction with them was as black shapes in the background. It was a bit of a slap in the face when he went home to NZ and was confronted by women who a) talked back b) wouldn't take any shit c) expected to be listened to. It was a while before he readjusted.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 14/12/2015 16:57

Wasn't it recently in the news about one of the princes and his antics against women staff?

yes in LA

shocking isn't it, shocking.

ElfontheShelfIsWATCHINGYOUTOO · 14/12/2015 16:59

kerala thats really awful, wouldnt your friends company take action? have these leaflets given out to staff???

who was behind it????

sounds very very very worrying, all of this brain washing and women hating going on, their brand of islam spreading out into the world....very worrinhg

Tangfastics · 14/12/2015 17:11

Saudi is where most of our terrorists are coming from. Always have.

I cannot get my head around western support of them.

Siwi · 14/12/2015 17:15

I'm starting a thread in adult fiction on Princess, if anyone else is reading it.

IPityThePontipines · 14/12/2015 17:29

Believing that every Muslim woman in the world lives a life akin to that described in Princess, is like thinking that modern day UK poverty porn is representative of the life of every British person.

Saudi is not thought well of by other Muslims. There is an argument for the two cities being deemed international territory and not belonging to any particular country, rather than being part of Saudi.

Destinysdaughter · 14/12/2015 17:30

Why do these men hate women so much?

DesertOrDessert · 14/12/2015 17:36

Fiction, Siwi? Non fiction, surely???

toffeeboffin · 14/12/2015 17:46

'It was a while before he readjusted'.

Imagine if you were born and bred in that environment. You would never readjust and would always see women as inferior.

Appalling.

toffeeboffin · 14/12/2015 17:48

Shock Trueblue

KERALA1 · 14/12/2015 18:28

Elf the leaflets were produced by the Saudi government / royal family and were available as hand outs to the conference delegates (all male obv). Conference organised by the rulers so not sure I would want to complain to them!

NickiFury · 14/12/2015 19:08

Highly recommend "Girls of Riyadh". I actually bought that book in Abu Dhabi and was surprised it was available there to be honest.

My friend works in Saudi for one of the oil companies. She rarely leaves the compound and either flies out to Bahrain or UAE every weekend so only really in Saudi for five days at a time. She seems happy there tbh but then she's not really "living" it is she? The money she's making will set her up for life though. She's divorced and determined never to marry again. I quite like the idea that Saudi money is supporting and making well off this particular unmarried woman.

Original poster
MagicFinger · 14/12/2015 19:52

Utterly shocked, but not really surprised by the answers, thanks all.

I suppose I held the vague hope the awfulness had been somewhat overhyped by Western media...

OP posts:
KERALA1 · 14/12/2015 21:46

I think it's under hyped if anything

sciaticasucks · 14/12/2015 23:03

As cabin crew one of the most depressing flights I ever did was to Saudi just after New Year a few years ago.

The flight was full but there was not one female passenger on board. Instead it was full of Western single men returning to work after presumably having spent a lovely Christmas with their families in the UK.

They all looked thoroughly miserable and most of them drank themselves silly.
(We are forbidden to serve alcohol once we enter Saudi airspace and to watch them try to get as much drink onside them before we closed the bars was sickening)

I chatted to quite a few of them and typically they would now not be seeing their families for up to six months)
I remember thinking that surely no amount of money could compensate for their obvious sadnessSad

Before we leave the aircraft we are given a bayern and headscarves which I am more than happy to wear.

When we arrive at the hotel we female crew are allocated rooms on a floor totally separate from males.
We are not allowed to eat in the restaurant unless it's at specific times and only then in a sectioned off 'family area'
We are forbidden to use the luxurious gyms and pools and of course there are no such restrictions for male crewmembers and they have free reign and full use of the hotels facilities.

I don't get many trips there these days but when I do i struggle with my conscience and still find it hard to get my head round the fact that such a place exists.The only thing I can do is remind myself that the reason I wanted to do the job in the first place was to experience other cultures and the way they live.

I always come home feeling extra grateful that I live in a democracy.

sciaticasucks · 14/12/2015 23:16

Oh, and by contrast to do a haj flight (Muslim pilgrims visiting Mecca) is an absolute delight.

Travel companies usually charter a whole aeroplane and they are full of pilgrims from all over the world. It's a once in a lifetime event for them and they are all so excited and happy to meet each other.

Halfway through the flight they all line up to use the bathrooms to wash and change into identical very basic, plain robes.
The idea is that there should be no show of wealth and no distinction between rich and poor.

I always find these flights joyous and a pleasure to do.

RudeElf · 14/12/2015 23:16

sciatica cant you refuse to go to saudi on discrimination grounds?

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 14/12/2015 23:25

DH is a North African Muslim who has completed Hajj. He has nothing good to say about the Saudi regime and hates the way they tarnish the image of all Muslims.

OP - even if you could go on holiday you would find the historical sites are being bulldozed to build shiny new stuff. DH said Mecca was a building site when he went there and the Mosque is hemmed in by buildings.

backinthebox · 14/12/2015 23:50

If sciaticasucks works for the same airline I do, then no, you can't refuse to go there. Bloody horrible place though. They are happy to be flown in by female pilots but women are not allowed to drive a car there. First time I flew there both of us in the flight deck were women. We were watched like we were meat from the second we left the cockpit till we got to our rooms. We no longer have to wear an abaya if we are in airline uniform. Last time I was there the hotel did not have rooms ready for us after our night flight and offered us free breakfast in the restaurant while our rooms were prepared. I took off my jacket as I am not sitting eating my breakfast wearing it, and nearly caused a meltdown I the restaurant. I avoid the entire place if I can, but I can no more refuse to go there than I can refuse to go to any of the other countries we fly to with dodgy scruples or security issues. Part of the job.

sciaticasucks · 15/12/2015 00:03

RudeElf that's a really good question.
Hmm....I wonder where we would stand on that?

I started flying a few years after apartheid finished but I believe that during that time special dispensation was given to black crew not to be rostered to go there (although they could still end up there by way of a diversion or standby )
I'm mixed race and have always thought that I would have refused to have gone had I been flying then but thinking about it the situation with regards women in Saudi Arabia is very much the same.
(Not to mention gay crewmembers who have to fly to parts of Africa where homosexuality is illegal )

What a world we live in eh?

There's actually a 'crewmour' about a captain who got suspended doing a landing PA on arriving in Saudi announcing 'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Saudi Arabia....where the temperature is 35 degrees....and the year is 1901Grin

caroldecker · 15/12/2015 00:07

Sadly we support it as it has the world's largest oil reserves and the princes allow the religious police to avoid ending up like the Shah of Iran.
This is one reason fracking should be very much encouraged, the current low oil price will cause them all sorts of issues.

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