There's a fascinating article in the LA Times (registration possibly required) today by Megan K. Stack discussing her time spent reporting in Saudi Arabia and what it's like to be a western woman in a profoundly anti-woman culture.
A few excerpts:
I spent my days in Saudi Arabia struggling unhappily between a lifetime of being taught to respect foreign cultures and the realization that this culture judged me a lesser being. I tried to draw parallels: If I went to South Africa during apartheid, would I feel compelled to be polite?
. . .
The rules are different here. The same U.S. government that heightened public outrage against the Taliban by decrying the mistreatment of Afghan women prizes the oil-slicked Saudi friendship and even offers wan praise for Saudi elections in which women are banned from voting. All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines. U.S.-owned hotels don't let women check in without a letter from a company vouching for her ability to pay; women checking into hotels alone have long been regarded as prostitutes.
. . .
Early in 2005, I covered the kingdom's much-touted municipal elections, which excluded women not only from running for office, but also from voting. True to their tribal roots, candidates pitched tents in vacant lots and played host to voters for long nights of coffee, bull sessions and poetry recitations. I accepted an invitation to visit one of the tents, but the sight of a woman in their midst so badly ruffled the would-be voters that the campaign manager hustled over and asked me, with lavish apologies, to make myself scarce before I cost his man the election.
The article touches on the fundamental, perplexing problem of being a western, multiculturalist liberal and at the same time wishing you could do something about a profoundly misogynist foreign culture. On the one hand there are cries for help, as from a Saudi economist:
He told me that both he and his wife hoped, desperately, that social and political reform would finally dawn in the kingdom. He thought foreign academics were too easy on Saudi Arabia, that they urged only minor changes instead of all-out democracy because they secretly regarded Saudis as "savages" incapable of handling too much freedom."I call them propaganda papers," he said of the foreign analysis. "They come up with all these lame excuses."
Yet on the other hand, Stack has "met many Saudi women. Some are rebels; some are proudly defensive of Saudi ways, convinced that any discussion of women's rights is a disguised attack on Islam from a hostile Westerner." As an outsider, you can't attack the misogyny without at least creating the appearance of attacking the culture at large, and worse, forcing your own culture upon them. At the same time, it feels somewhat callous to therefore wash your hands of the situation and say "Well! I suppose any change will have to come entirely from within, from an oppressed and politically powerless segment of the population." Any support one gives to native movements will taint them with western imperialism, but, frankly, they'll probably be considered to be tainted with western imperialism no matter what.
I was also interested in a conversation Stein had with a young Saudi woman:
One afternoon, a candidate invited me to meet his daughter. She spoke fluent English and was not much younger than me. I cannot remember whether she was wearing hijab, the Islamic head scarf, inside her home, but I have a memory of pink. I asked her about the elections."Very good," she said.
So you really think so, I said gently, even though you can't vote?
"Of course," she said. "Why do I need to vote?"
Her father chimed in. He urged her, speaking English for my benefit, to speak candidly. But she insisted: What good was voting? She looked at me as if she felt sorry for me, a woman cast adrift on the rough seas of the world, no male protector in sight.
"Maybe you don't want to vote," I said. "But wouldn't you like to make that choice yourself?"
"I don't need to," she said calmly, blinking slowly and deliberately. "If I have a father or a husband, why do I need to vote? Why should I need to work? They will take care of everything."
I found this interesting because it echoes some of what you hear from anti-feminist women in the US. Why should women have the right to a late-term abortion when I don't, personally, foresee myself needing one?
I would highly recommend reading the entire article.
