The Pink Flamingo :: "Cats & Dogs in the Developed World Have More Rights Than Arab Women"

“…Although the latest petition is unlikely to put women behind the wheel and on their country’s multi-lane highways anytime soon, the use of the internet -- emails, blogs, and social networking websites -- to circulate it showed how adept Saudi women have become at navigating the information highway, which has become one of the most exciting tools for change in the Arab world….”

My great aunt Mabel lived to be something like 96. She was born in the early 1880’s and had a life that spanned everything from the first horseless carriages to the space shuttle. And, “Mibsy” as we called her, kept up with every little development, including the fact that that “young astronaut Bob Crippen is one of the nicest looking young chaps I’ve seen in years!” She, her mother, and her sisters (my grandmother Reidhead included) were among the very first women to be allowed to vote in the state of Minnesota. I have my grandmothers Suffrage ribbon somewhere. (She was also the president of the Minnesota Woman’s Temperance Movement – during Prohibition – no less!).

One thing Aunt Mabel taught me was the fact that, because “women’s rights and the right to vote were GIVEN to us” they can be taken away from us. She voted in every election possible her entire life, including being front page news as she grew older. She was a great article and the local papers loved interviewing her as she would go to vote. She would hold audience describing the first time she voted. She considered that day one of the most important in her life.

In an era where out of control conservatives are trying to repeal the 14th and 17th Amendments, and a ‘creeping Sharia’ is starting to infiltrate the Western world, isn’t it important for us to remember how important it is for women to stand up for their rights and to vote?

Sister Toldjah has an interesting piece today that could herald good things to come. It is possible there is a faint awakening of a “Suffrage” movement in Saudi Arabia! (finally) She picked it up from Fausta’s Blog.

THE STORY
The Story:

“….Dammam, Asharq Al-Awsat- Members of Khobar's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were the victims of an attack by two Saudi females, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.
According to the head of the commission in Khobar, two girls pepper sprayed members of the commission after they had tried to offer them advice.

Head of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the Eastern province Dr. Mohamed bin Marshood al-Marshood, told Asharq Al Awsat that two of the Commission's employees were verbally insulted and attacked by two inappropriately-dressed females, in the old market in Prince Bandar street, an area usually crowded with shoppers during the month of Ramadan.

According to Dr. Al-Marshood, the two commission members approached the girls in order to "politely" advise and guide them regarding their inappropriate clothing.

Consequently, the two girls started verbally abusing the commission members, which then lead to one of the girls pepper-spraying them in the face as the other girl filmed the incident on her mobile phone, while continuing to hurl insults at them.

The Eastern Province's head of the commission also revealed that with the help of the police his two employees were able to control the situation.

The two females were then escorted to the police station where they apologized for the attack, were cautioned and then released.”

If you don’t think this isn’t a shot at the status quo, consider it is Ramadan. These “girls” (we do not know their age) were obviously out to make a statement.

IS THERE MORE TO THE STORY?
First, the women were “dolled up”, in other words, they were wearing make-up! There’s much more to this story. The beautiful part is we’re not talking “upper class women” here, but evidently the “working class” of women who may be on the cusp of being fed up with the status quo.

“…The commission’s teams patrol public places to ensure women are not harassed, sexes don’t mingle and shops close for prayers. “Two members of the commission were attacked, cursed and sworn at by two women, who were blatantly dolled up,” Al-Marshoud said, meaning the women were wearing makeup.

He said the commission’s officials stopped the women to give them advice and guidance after they noticed they were wearing makeup. “One of the women took out a black container and sprayed a substance at them while the other filmed what happened with her phone camera while making improper comments,” Al-Marshoud said.

He said commission members took control of the situation with help from security patrols.

“During questioning, the women apologized for attacking the two commission members, signed a statement and were released,” he added….”

Women cannot dine outdoors because men are near and they also must stand and eat if men need to be seated.

“…In a related development, commission members banned female shoppers from sitting in a makeshift outdoor restaurant to have their iftar meals in a low-income neighborhood in Jeddah because men were already seated at special tables set up for the fasting month, according to the daily Al-Watan. The paper quoted Muhammed Mehdawi as saying commission members forced his wife and children to eat their food while standing next to him. Other women stood by the stands that run the modest eatery.

Ali Al-Hayyan, head of the commission’s Jeddah branch, said the agents’ actions were meant as a deterrent, “especially since some of the women were dolled up, and also to prevent the mixing of the sexes that could happen at such events and which our religion rejects,” the paper said.

Siddeequa, a 52-year-old woman, said she had to eat her food standing after the commission’s members asked her to leave her seat at the restaurant. Owners of makeshift restaurants in downtown Jeddah feared the action of commission members would affect their businesses, as families would hesitate to visit them.”

Fausta brings up the horrific fire 5 years ago where 15 girls were allowed to die because they were “women” and men couldn’t go help them escape from their blazing dorm.

“…According to the al-Eqtisadiah daily, firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam. One witness said he saw three policemen "beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya". The Saudi Gazette quoted witnesses as saying that the police - known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice - had stopped men who tried to help the girls and warned "it is a sinful to approach them". The father of one of the dead girls said that the school watchman even refused to open the gates to let the girls out. "Lives could have been saved had they not been stopped by members of the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," the newspaper concluded….”

Fausta also reminds us that women in Saudi Arabia are lobbying for the right to drive.

“…In the weeks ushering in the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began Thursday, a furious debate erupted in a Saudi newspaper over a Ramadan television serial that takes up the hardships the ban has caused. In the serial, "Amsha bint Ammash," the main character, Amsha, loses her father and is forced to relocate from her village to Jiddah. After an unsuccessful round of job searching, she decides to become a taxi driver — a job open only to men. To get around the ban, she disguises herself as a man, adding a mustache and donning the white robe and red-and-white-checkered headdress Saudi men wear.

When the program was first advertised, some reacted with shock that a Saudi woman was not only portraying a man, but also one who drives. Conservatives say women should not emulate men in behavior or dress. The controversy has forced the serial's writer, Abdullah Abdul-Amer, to issue a statement stressing the goal of the program, aired on the Lebanese satellite channel LBC, "is not to incite women to drive." "All I wanted to do was raise our contemporary issues from a Saudi viewpoint and through comedy," said Abdul-Amer.

But that has not appeased Saudis determined to uphold the driving ban. In a letter to Al-Hayat daily titled "Amsha, we don't need you," reader Iman Abdul-Wahhab wondered why the driving issue "has become an obsession for many, Saudis and non-Saudis." "Has this become a weak point for us?" she wrote. "As a Saudi girl, I say, 'No.'" "This is a tradition that has become acceptable," she added. "No one has any right to use it as a means to mock or ridicule."

On Monday, another Saudi newspaper, Al-Watan, ran an article about a major car dealership sending out invitations for women in Jiddah to come try out a new family sedan for 24 hours. But the dealership stressed the invitation was for women and their drivers, who are the only ones permitted to test-drive the cars. Al-Oyouni said she understands that some women oppose ending the ban. "We won't force it on those who don't want it," she said.

The petition, circulated electronically for signatures, has received a lot of support from within the kingdom, from both men and women, as well as from outside Saudi Arabia, al-Oyouni said. "This is a right that has been delayed for too long."

BUT SERIOUSLY
What are Women’s Rights in Islam? (Islamic site)
TV Series about Rape has huge response in Middle Eastern world.
Reform in the Arab World

Middle East Online about women in Saudi Arabia? by Mona Eltahawy

“…A Saudi woman friend who needed corrective eye surgery visited a doctor in her country a few years ago to see if she qualified for the procedure. As he performed routine tests my friend reminded him that he hadn’t measured the diameter of her pupils. She’d done her homework and knew what to expect. The doctor told her it was an unnecessary test for women because it measured the clarity of night vision which was crucial for driving in the dark and since women can’t drive in the kingdom, he performed the test on men only.

My friend was particularly outraged because in 1990, when 47 Saudi women infamously violated the ban on driving by taking to the wheel in a convoy through the capital Riyadh, she was one of just a few students in her high school who refused to sign a petition by teachers and classmates denouncing the protestors.

Some 17 years later, the newly-formed Committee of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars sent an altogether different petition of more than 1,100 names to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah on September 23, their country’s national day. It was not only the first public challenge to the driving ban since the 1990 demonstration but a well-timed reminder that as Saudi Arabia turns 77, it remains the only country in the world to prohibit women from such a basic right -- quite an irony for the country that keeps so many of the world’s cars running thanks to its massive oil reserves.

Saudi Arabia might be richer and enjoy more political clout than ever -- since Abdel Aziz Al-Saud brought together its disparate regions under the monarchy named after his family -- but it continues to hold one of the poorest women’s rights records in the world.

When my family moved from the UK to Saudi Arabia in 1982, my mother -- a physician who like my father had just earned her Ph.D. from a British university -- said she felt she had been rendered a cripple by her inability to drive. On the few occasions we rode the public buses, we got a taste of what can only be described as gender apartheid -- women had just two rows at the very back….”

Eltahawy stresses the fact that upper income women have their own cars and drivers, but lower income women and women who have no male protector have serious transportation problems.

More about the fight to drive:
Interview with one of the Saudi “Royals”

SAUDI WOMEN CAN NOW GO TO LAW SCHOOL
From the Wall Street Journal

“…'Cats and dogs in the developed world have more rights than Arab women," says Wajeha al-Huwaider, the Saudi writer and human rights activist. With that in mind, she has co-founded, along with Fawzia al-Uyyouni, the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia. Don't laugh; such a movement will strike many as quixotic considering the current status of women in the desert kingdom. In Saudi Arabia, the fairer sex can't work, travel, study, marry or see a doctor without the permission of a male "legal guardian." Strict dress codes are enforced by the vice police. Dissent, by men or women, isn't tolerated. Ms. al-Huwaider says she is taking one step at a time.

The league is now collecting signatures for a petition to be delivered to King Abdullah on September 23, the country's national holiday. Published on the liberal Arab Web site Aafaq last week, the petition demands that the King "return that which has been stolen from women: the right to (free) movement through the use of cars," according to a translation by MEMRI media research institute. As of this writing, the petition has collected 220 signatures. Those are 220 brave people.
There have been small signs of recent progress for women in Saudi Arabia, especially in the workplace. King Abdullah issued a decree last year saying women should be encouraged to work in all fields; and an increasing number of workplaces, including in government, are establishing separate sections for female employees. A year ago women were admitted to law school for the first time. Now if only they were free to drive themselves to school or work.”