Here’s a nice piece on women and education from Mshari Al-Zaydi, in Asharq Alawsat.

Al-Zaydi says the world—Saudi Arabia included—is undergoing transformation. Change is the only constant in life. In order to stay on top of change, societies must change as well, not remain locked into some idealized culture. Change is built into the human system, it’s not an import from foreign climes. He provides examples of female thinkers, and their male supporters, from the earliest days of the modern Saudi state, back in the 1930s.

He also points to the awkward need that pushes women in modern Saudi society: more than 90% of them have no jobs! [Note: I rewrote that sentence for clarity, thanks to a tip from a commenter.] The nay-sayers and those who would lock Saudi society into a cultural straight jacket need to back off and get with the modern world if Saudi Arabia is to compete and if it is to treat its women fairly.

This is the Saudi Woman
Mshari Al-Zaydi

Saudi society as a whole is in a state of effective movement and activity that is attracting the attention of foreign and local observers. The issue of women’s rights is part of this activity and “natural” interaction [taking place within Saudi society]. This is a raw fact that has nothing to do with our assessment of the situation, or whether or not we admire such activity and development. Generations of Saudi girls have been educated since the procession of formal education began back in 1960 following a royal decree that was issued by King Saud granting girls the right to education.

The decision was protested at that time by certain currents, but the march went on and Saudi girls took part in formal education. Some of them were even sent to study abroad and within a few years Saudi Arabia had its own female doctors, bankers, engineers and businesswomen.

Every stage of personal “development” was met with opposing apprehensive voices repeating the same old arguments and expressing the same old fears. But the ship of women’s rights would, in most cases, sail through those obstacles, leaving those fears to dwindle or recoil in some distant corner until a new stage approaches.

Today, in the midst of all the grand transformations that have taken place within the large Saudi society since the revolutionary rise of the internet and satellite television stations, and considering the large numbers of young Saudi men and women in comparison to the overall Saudi population, and in light of the inability of the public sector to incorporate women in public and private sector jobs, or let us say the limitation of such incorporation due to its same old fears and problems related to the structure of the labour market in general, which have affected both young men and women equally, in light of all of this, we have come to face a serious issue concerning women, one that stands out on its own and is backed with facts and figures.
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