Women Asked to Leave Seminar
Raid Qusti, Arab NewsRIYADH, 22 November 2006 — A presenter from King Saud University at an international medical seminar at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center caused a stir yesterday when he insisted that all women — including medical and media professionals — leave the room before he would enter the room to give his presentation. Initially some women expressed consternation at the request, but later relented and left the room so the doctor and orthodox man could give his presentation about Islam and the ethics of organ donation and end-of-life issues.
Prior to the presentation by Dr. Yousef Al-Ahmed, the audience was informed that the doctor would not be in the same room with women when he spoke about medical ethics.
“We had to ask the female medical staff to leave the hall based on the sheikh’s request,†said a member of the organizing committee who preferred to remain anonymous.
“This is ridiculous,†said one woman, a medical professional and Muslim. “In the Grand Mosque in Makkah men and women pray together. Why are we being asked to leave? This guy knows a hospital is a mixed place. He should have realized that before he came,†she said. “I am being put in a very embarrassing situation.â€
A Saudi woman who specializes in neuroscience said the doctor had no right to ask women to leave.
“We had every right to be there,†she said on condition of anonymity. “We were attending a scientific medical symposium. If he did not want to attend the symposium because it was mixed with men and women medical experts doing their job, that is his problem, not ours.â€
Articles like this one from Arab News suggest that social change is going to be a long time coming in Saudi Arabia.
Dr. Yousef Al-Ahmed is a jerk. If that’s not ‘diplomatic’, then too bad.
Medicine is not restricted to one sex or another any more than disease and disability are so restricted. The sponsors, who invited the speaker—and who then disinvited all the women attending—should be taken to task for this idiocy to ensure it’s not repeated.
Once past this outrage, the article notes that the lectures moved on to more medically oriented issues, ones that are ethically difficult to decide in all cultures: when is it proper to turn off life-support systems; how is death determined; how ‘dead’ does a person need to be before his organs are harvested for transplantation? It’s good that the issues are being discussed and reported in the media.
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November:22:2006 - 10:40
What’s even sadder is that the woman who complain had to request anonymity. One wonders what approbriations she would face if her identity were revealed in the article.
November:22:2006 - 12:00
Mostly social ones. Many Saudi women are reluctant to have their names appear in public; Saudi men often won’t even mention their wives names.
At the very least, anonymity protects the speaker from harassing mail and death threats, sadly a frequent result of objecting to too-strict religious interpretations.
December:01:2006 - 13:56
I shouldn’t wonder at Saudi women’s reluctance to be named in print: they are property in KSA, not accorded any status or voice. To wit domestic violence is a huge problem and women’s shelters are virtually non-existant, the only one I know of is for abused runaway servants, so one can say that Saudi women are total prisonners of antiquated tribal customs and retrograde mysoginistic religious maniacs.
That on this occasion they protested and stood their ground, albeit not as forcefully as a western woman would, has impressed me no end!
May one dare hope that this is a sign that the average educated Saudi woman is getting fed up with her lack of human dignity, and is on the verge of organizing a real movement for equal civic rights for everyone, surely in this day and age of instant mass communication their cause would get absolute support worldwide and would have a real chance of success.
May this be prophesy!!!
December:01:2006 - 19:08
There actually are a few (like three) shelters for abused women. That’s clearly not enough and Saudi women are asking for more and for better laws to protect them.
They don’t particularly want, however, global support for their efforts. That support complicates things for them as it provides ready ammunition for their critics to claim, “American lackies!”
Most Saudi women prefer to define their own battles over their own rights, not be told what they should want.