Saudi Arabian women threaten to flee country en masse if they are not given basic rights

[userschmoozer]

''...Saudi Arabian women are threatening to flee the country if the government doesn’t pursue measures to end a male guardianship system that bars women from doing basic activities, including traveling or going to the doctor, without the permission of men.''

womenintheworld.com/2019/01/11/saudi-arabian-women-threaten-to-flee-country-en-masse-if-they-are-not-given-basic-rights/

I don't know what the rule is re: minors and their mothers in Saudi Arabia, but the plots of both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice hinge on men inheriting and widows and daughters having very little power. Their livelihoods depend on being married and if they can't be married they have to rely on the male heir.

You don't have to look back a long way in UK history to find women who would have depended on their sons. We even have a name for the place where a woman lives on the death of her wealthy husbands - dower house. Obviously you have to be quite rich to put your mother in a dower house, but I don't see why women in poor families would have had more freedom.

If you can't earn money or possess property in your own right you depend on somebody who can.

Lots of Saudi families don’t live like that

There are probably a lot of nice individuals, but we are talking the country as a whole. Not sure why you think you need to point this out.

(Although Saudis have been among the most entitled people I have ever met, many really treat unrelated women like scum; the related ones a bit better than that. Speaking anecdotally and from my own experience of course)

Whether they are treated like scum or princesses, isn't really the point. The system is set up so that it is perfectly legitimate to treat them like scum.

And even the princesses essentially live in a cage. It may be an exceptionally luxurious cage, but those who attempt to escape from it don't fare well.

There is no ethical justification for a legal system that treats women as minors for their entire lives.

I can point out what the fuck I want to point out.

Did anyone watch the BBC film about Latifa, the missing Saudi princess?

She was desperate to escape. The lengths she went to were unbelievable.

I can point out what the fuck I want to point out.

Sure, and I’ll point out that you essentially threw out a #notallmen

Oh, but won’t you think of the poor decent Saudi men, they are the ones really suffering here

I can point out what the fuck I want to point out.

Of course. And you can expect a response.

In the Twitter convo someone posted upthread there's a video from a very nice young Saudi man pointing out how unreasonable the guardianship system is. There are certainly other Saudi men who feel the same. The system is still misogynistic and harmful to women, no matter how many very nice men don't approve of it.

I do think things will change sooner or later, and that a lot of young people want the rules loosened up, and that the demographic slant towards youth may accelerate that process. The clergy will fight it every step of the way, though, and for every royal who wants change there's another who'll try his best to block it.

I do think things will change sooner or later

I think so too. They are going through some economic challenges, and that will help accelerate change, both good and bad.

In my experience of living there and in the ME in general, the intelligent and decent men acknowledge that women CAN be as intelligent as them and are worthy of human treatment, and are pretty much pro advances in human rights. Unfortunately there are a lot of stupid decent men who don't quite get the difference between resisting tradition and improving women's lives. Lots of intelligent arseholes too, sadly, who quite like being in control.

I am very pleased for Rahaf and hope that she remains politically active in exile - a change is gonna come, whether the status quo like it or not.

I can’t get excited about this. Because history tells me that when women stand up, men stomp all the harder to put them back down. I worry that this will have caused a lot of panic amongst men and they will be hurting a lot of women in their backlash of re exerting their control. This is a worrying time for those women, don’t celebrate yet.

Whenever you have youth unemployment as high as it is there some sort of change is in the offing. Exactly how that will play out remains to be seen.

I'd be more confident in the motives of SA royals wanting change if they weren't simultaneously murdering journalists who had criticised SA.

It’s not going to happen. In the Middle East most people (and that includes most women) think that how it is over there is how society should be. It is no different to our country in that regard, in our country the social norms are merely the opinions of the majority, the Middle East is no different. A few hundred people leaving Saudi only proves that a tiny minority are unhappy there. Most women in the Middle East don’t think their rights are being abused because they neither subscribe to the concept nor would they even be aware of what their rights should be if they did agree with western ideas. The left are cultural imperialists. I think people are projecting their own ideas onto others and assuming that other people will interpret a situation the way that they do as if their ideas were absolutes. But this is not the case, they don’t and they are not.

Most women in the Middle East don’t think their rights are being abused

No Middle Eastern country is as oppressive as Saudi, not even Iran. No one is saying they’ll be a progressive country, but a lot of women are tired of the guardianship system and they would not be recognisably feminist.

Most women in the Middle East don’t think their rights are being abused

Lots of women disagreed with British women getting the vote. They thought it was a waste of time.

Surely Internet will have some impact. When you see grass being greener it makes you wonder about your own lawn.

There are 1970s photos of women happily wandering around in western dress, mini skirts etc.

The subjugation of middle eastern women in the face of modernisation has been extremely effective in a very short time. We should take note. These are brave women and I support them entirely.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/01/disappeared-saudi-couple-highlights-crackdown-activists-190109093412494.html

There are 1970s photos of women happily wandering around in western dress, mini skirts etc.

Should be noted that these were urbanised girls from wealthy families; this was definitely not the norm among Afghanis (or Iran, another source for these types of photos)

Still, they all got caught up in a desperately sad situation.

If all women in Saudi Arabia were perfectly happy with the status quo nobody would be being arrested or fleeing the country.