Saudi Gazette reports on the YouTube video of a Saudi woman’s confrontation with religious police in a Riyadh mall. According to the report, the video has also been noticed by the Arabic daily Al-Hayat, which learned that the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are looking into the matter.

Video of Hai’a staff arguing with girl goes viral

RIYADH – A video of a girl and a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice arguing over why she had manicured nails has gone viral and ignited a debate over the way commission members should deal with people in public places.

The video, shot by the girl, and uploaded on the popular video-sharing website Youtube, shows a commission member ordering the girl to leave the Hayat Mall in Riyadh on account of her manicured nails. The two become engaged in a heated argument with the girl telling the commission member he has no right to look at her nails.

“You don’t see a strand of hair from other girls while you are showing off your manicure in a public venue… this is my duty to tell you this,” said the commission member to which the girl replied, “Why are you chasing me? The government said no more chasing! Your duty is to advise people… why are you looking at my manicure? I will never leave the mall!”

At one point, the girl sought the help of two of the mall’s security guards.
…

[Note: the video link above comes through the MEMRI channel and carries its translation of the exchange. I'm currently unable to find the woman's own YouTube submission. If anyone can point me to it, I'll swap out the link.]

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Saudi Jawa, I’ve replaced the link to now point YouTube. The link was at Ahmed Al-Omran’s Saudi Jeans blog.

Seven years ago, Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), co-wrote an article about Saudi Arabia’s education system Saudi System Is the Problem. She has a new article for the Council based on her recent visit to Queen Effat University, where she was invited to deliver a commencement address. She reports that Saudi Arabia is indeed fixing the system and women’s education is at the fore. She notes that female literacy is over 80% and near 100% for young women, a far cry from the 5% literacy rate in the 1960s. Women have come along way in a relatively short period of time. They have further to go, of course, but they are determined to get there.

Effat University on the Forefront of Change in Saudi Arabia
Isobel Coleman

This past weekend, I had the honor of being the commencement speaker at Effat University, a private university for women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was hardly the staid affair I expected. Colorful klieg lights lit the way of arriving parents and dignitaries; forget “Pomp and Circumstance”—the more than two hundred graduates and faculty paraded in to a pulsating techno beat, while stage fog swirled to dramatic effect. The array of high-heeled shoes under the graduates’ sky-blue abayas was breathtaking—everything from six inch high, hot-pink platform wedges, to cowboy boots, to the latest snakeskin and metallic Manolo Blahniks.

What really impressed me was the energy and passion of the graduates. The president of the student government in her speech exhorted her fellow graduates—in a chant of “yes, we can”—to change the world around them. Married at the age of twenty, she also thanked her husband for not “putting her in a cage” and allowing her to pursue her dreams. (She exuded such determination that I can guess he didn’t have much of an alternative.) The alumni speaker, who had been the valedictorian of the class of 2006, spoke of her sense of accomplishment in getting her master’s degree in England and building her career, but noted that she was most proud of passing her driver’s test in the U.K. That elicited particular cheers from the crowd. (Despite last year’s renewed effort to eliminate the driving ban, Saudi women are still not allowed to drive.)

I was also impressed to see Effat graduating a quarter of its students from its College of Engineering, which it established in partnership with Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering. When I first visited Effat seven years ago, it was still in the early stages of establishing engineering as a degree, a first for women in Saudi Arabia. In my book Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East, I describe the challenges that Effat faced in introducing engineering for women. As Dr. Haifa Jamal al-Lail, the president of Effat explained then, “Those in the business community said to us, ‘Why teach the girls engineering? We won’t hire them.’ Others who were more sympathetic to our goal said, ‘Why don’t you call it something else, so people aren’t so against it?’ But I like the word engineering – I’m not hiding anything!” Her gamble paid off, and today Effat’s engineering graduates are enrolled in top post-graduate programs around the world and are sought-after employees in the Kingdom.
…

[HT to SUSRIS]

The BBC engages in a bit of plausible tea-leaf reading. It reports that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has relieved Sheikh Abdelmohsen al-Obeikan – one of the more conservative religious sheiks – of his position as adviser to the royal cabinet. The article suggests that this is because al-Obeikan was getting too loud with positions contrary to those of the King, particularly when it came to the proper role of women in Saudi society.

Al-Obeikan became notorious when, a few years ago, he suggested that a way to permit men and women to work in the same offices would be for the women to share breast milk with the males in the office. This would create a relationship under Islamic standards, by which the men became family members of the women and therefore be ‘safe’ to be in the same location. His suggestion drew cries of disgust and ridicule among both foreign audiences and Saudis alike.

Saudi King Abdullah sacks conservative adviser

Saudi King Abdullah has sacked one of his most hardline advisers, Sheikh Abdelmohsen al-Obeikan.

Sheikh Obeikan, who was an adviser to the royal cabinet, opposed moves to relax gender segregation.

The dismissal comes shortly after Sheikh Obeikan attacked plans by “influential people to corrupt Muslim society by trying to change the natural status of women”.

Saudi officials did not give a reason for Sheikh Obeikan’s departure.
…

Saudi Gazette runs only a brief report from the Saudi Press Agency stating that al-Obeikan had been relieved of his duties. Arab News runs a somewhat longer, but no more informative article.

[Thanks to reader 'Dakota' for the lead.]

An piece in Saudi Gazette, which originated in the Arabic daily Okaz, wonders why there are no female Saudi Arabia flight attendants, even on Saudi airlines. At present, only foreign women hold the job and not all of them can speak Arabic or are aware of Saudi sensitivities. Customer service, the writer suggests, would be greatly improved, at least for the Saudi passengers who make up the vast majority of all passengers.

The writer is correct, but neglects a few historical details. It was not long ago – and it still may be the case – that some flight attendants worked in the Kingdom for, shall we say, dual purposes. They discovered that they could greatly supplement their airline salaries by taking part in the ‘horizontal hospitality’ business, never mind what the laws or their contracts said. While it was only a very small minority of attendants involved, it cast a rather dark shadow over the job classification. That’s why the writer received such strong pushback when he mused about Saudi flight attendants to a nearby Saudi.

The airlines are going to have to do a better job of ensuring that flight attendants have a good reputation before Saudi women can be expected to take the jobs.

The piece does note that ground crews, particularly ticket counter personnel, are primarily women around the world. This is certainly a job that Saudi women could do without jeopardizing their reputations. I’ve no doubt that Saudis would make competent flight attendants – or even pilots – but the bad reputation developed by the few has tainted the job.

Why can’t Saudi girls fly?
Homoud Abu Talib | Okaz

ON a recent flight I witnessed a foreign air hostess struggling to come to terms with the seating arrangements of a large family. She didn’t realize how serious it would be for a woman to be located next to a strange man. The concerned felt even more frustrated that she did not understand what they were trying to communicate to her given the obvious language barrier.

I told my compatriot in the seat next to mine, “Don’t you think if the air hostess was a Saudi woman, perhaps such problems could be averted? His reply was a sharp and dismissive “You want our girls to work as air hostesses? How dare you!” I thought it wise to stay silent but it did start off an interesting train of thought.
…

Arab News reports that 28% of Saudi women looking for aren’t able to find jobs. On the whole, only 1.2% of all jobs in Saudi Arabia are filled by women. As women represent over 50% of the population as well as over 50% of college graduates, there seems to be an imbalance.

While some impediments to women’s working have been removed – women no longer need permission of the fathers or guardians to work, for example – society throws up many more. The simple inability to drive to work is one. Having to hire a driver, even part-time, cuts into the profitability, or even the reasonableness of getting a job. Having to depend on a spouse or family member for a ride to and from work every day is both a hassle and not always reliable. Some companies (including government ministries) offer transportation, but only when there are large enough numbers for that to make sense.

The wastage of human capital is truly appalling.

28 percent Saudi women are unemployed
DAMMAM: ARAB NEWS

Unemployment among Saudi women has reached 28 percent, while their representation does not go beyond 1.2 percent in the Kingdom’s 5,214 factories, according to a senior official of the Labor Ministry.

Addressing a workshop in Dammam on Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of the Ministry of Labor for development Fahd Al-Tikhaifi revealed that the ministry had about 1.6 million CVs of women looking for jobs, including holders of doctorate and master’s degrees.

Al-Tikhaifi was speaking at the workshop at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry under the title “Feminizing and Saudizing Industrial Jobs.”

He said the current manpower in the factories in the Kingdom is 678,000, of which only 14.1 percent are Saudis.

Al-Tikhaifi revealed that Saudi women no longer needed the consent of their father or custodian to be employed. “The new labor laws have canceled this condition,” he pointed out.
…

While it’s great that Saudi Arabian women are continuing to find jobs, it’s a bit worrisome that they’re doing so through the block reservation of certain types of jobs on the low end of the pay spectrum. The government has enforced a new rule that women, and only women, will sell female lingerie. That makes a great deal of sense in a country where sexual segregation has a tendency to lead toward hyper-sexuality on the part of men. Women just didn’t feel comfortable buying intimate apparel from men who were constantly – and literally – sizing them up.

Now, Saudi Gazette reports, on the heels of the success of the lingerie program, the government will set aside the selling of cosmetics for women alone. There is again some sense to this. Particularly when it comes to sampling and demonstrating, having women be the sole contact is reasonable. But again, it’s jobs at the low end of the economy. Better than nothing, of course, but hardly the basis of life-long careers.

Women-only cosmetic shops from June 30

JEDDAH – The successful deployment of women-only lingerie shops has ushered in a new era that not only provides more privacy but opens up thousands of job opportunities for Saudi women. Business owners have also reported a welcome increase in sales.

The Ministry of Labor has now moved on to the next phase of the law whereby all cosmetics and perfume shops will have to employ female staff only. According to Fahd Al-Tekhaifi, Assistant Undersecretary for Development at the Ministry of Labor, the law will come into force on June 30.
…

The Saudi Ministry of Labor, the paper also reports, is doing a little work of its own to remove the glass ceiling within the Ministry. Now, the high-level jobs will become available to women. It required a restructuring of the Ministry, but senior jobs in 33 branch offices will become available.

Labor Ministry to employ women in key positions

The international trend of body piercing has hit Saudi Arabia, Al-Arabiya TV reports. Most see it as ‘blind emulation’ of foreign culture, but some see it as signs of discontent on the part of the women being pierced. Whether it is rebelling against parents and social expectations, or simply asserting individuality, the practice has raise concerns. This is very much a female issue, though: Saudi males are not getting pierced.

Pierced ears are the norm for Saudi women: one would be hard-put to find little girls without it. But other piercings, particularly on the face, are another matter. Tattoos, though forbidden in Islam, have a long history and tradition within Bedouin culture; piercings, particularly nose piercings, do as well. But this isn’t that. It’s clearly a cultural import, but one whose meaning is modified by those having it done.

Body piercing trend rises among Saudi women
Al Arabiya

Several trends seen as imported from Western cultures have invaded Saudi Arabia and encouraged women to seek change through them. While clothes and accessories seem like the most traditional influences, piercing is the latest and most outrageous fashion among Saudi women.

Piercing the lips, tongue and navel are the most popular with Saudi women, reported the Saudi edition of al-Hayat newspaper.

According to the paper, Saudi girls differ on the piercing trend. Some do not think this trend makes the girl more beautiful and in fact argue that it makes her look ugly. Some go as far as considering a girl who pierces any part of her face unfeminine. Several men agree with this point of view and say that they never get attracted to girls with piercings.

Others argue that piercing adds to their beauty and makes them look different.
…

Is there really any question about why people believe that women in Saudi Arabia have little in the way of protection? Even in a society that claims to see the protection of its women as one of its foremost obligations? From Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya:

Saudi man divorces wife during live radio talk with religious scholar
Al Arabiya — DUBAI

A Saudi man accepted the advice of a prominent religious scholar on Saturday and divorced his wife during a live radio program tackling marital issues.

The man phoned the program to complain to Sheikh Ghazi al-Shammari that his wife disobeyed him by travelling without his approval from the Saudi port city of Jeddah to the capital Riyadh for a business conference.

The unnamed man said his wife “offended his manhood.”

He told Shammari that before his marriage he had accepted his wife’s demands to work on condition that work would not interfere with their marital life.

Shammari advised the man to divorce his wife as a punitive measure for “committing such a mistake against her home and husband.”

The husband immediately heeded the advice and divorced her during the live program although Shammari advised him to remarry her if she repents.
…

Women and sports is a volatile combination in Saudi Arabia. Many see sports or athletics of any kind as incompatible with society’s ideal of womanhood. As a result, government tends to pussyfoot around the issue. It says it’s not against women’s taking part in athletics, but doesn’t do much of anything to encourage it, even while noting that active lifestyles are important to the nation’s health. Now, Saudi Gazette reports, the earth groans and starts to deliver. A state school in the Eastern Province city of Al-Khobar has installed basketball hoops and is encouraging girls to get active. Too, the government is ‘forming a committee’ (yes, yet another ‘committee’) to study the issue of formal sports clubs for women.

The Saudi Olympic Committee make itself a laughing stock when it said it would permit Saudi women to take part in this year’s Summer Olympics in London, but then said that it wouldn’t support them at all. Whatever women wanted to participate would have to pay their own way and would get no support once in London.

Arguments against women’s participation in sports are vague and chaotic. Even in the face of issues of fairness or health or national economy, society just doesn’t see that women are equal to men. They instead seek ways to define women as categorically different and insist on putting them on a pedestal of social construction. Perhaps something will come of the new committee, perhaps not. That a public school is finally getting around to encouraging activity is likely the better indication that change is coming to Saudi Arabia, even if it moves at a snail’s pace.

Committee studying sports clubs for women

RIYADH — The government has set up a ministerial committee to consider allowing and regulating women’s sports clubs, a senior official has said.

Abdullah Al-Zamil from the General Presidency of Youth Welfare, the top Saudi sporting body, was quoted by local media as saying that the committee was formed to end the “chaos” surrounding women’s sports clubs which are unregulated.

“The mission of the committee is focused on building a system for these clubs,” Al-Zamil was reported as saying.

Last week, a public girls’ school in the Eastern Province introduced physical education to its students by installing basketball hoops for them to use at break time.
The school in Al-Khobar thus became the first public school to openly encourage sports for girls.
…

Saudi Gazette reports that women in Saudi Arabia aren’t terribly keen abut taking their business to female service representatives. Those female reps, the article reports, are ill-trained and have a bad attitude about service. Given the option, many women will instead turn to male representatives who will quickly and competently resolve their problems.

I guess part of it is that employers place lower expectations upon their female employees and so don’t bother with intensive training. Another facet could well be that male supervisors are extra cautious about correcting their female employees. In the Kingdom, a female employee can make life pretty miserable for a male supervisor by alleging misconduct. Perhaps the companies should be looking to employ a few hard-as-nails women into supervisory roles.

Women prefer male customer service agents
Mariam Nihal | Saudi Gazette

Most women prefer male customer service agents rather than females in Saudi Arabia. They complain that female customer care agents working in private sector companies like banks and telephone companies are unequipped and untrained to deal with customers on a professional level.

The lack of professional corporate culture in customer service industries that employ women has been a regular problem with female customers. “Whenever I have a quick and urgent transaction at the bank, I walk into the male section because I know I will be guaranteed good service and get my job done.”

Both men and women who spoke to Saudi Gazette believe that the notion of females working in the service sector in the Kingdom is fairly new, women workers do not take their client servicing jobs seriously. The most common reasons listed by women who usually go to men for customer care services were –– that men are comparatively more patient, direct, understanding –– and are easier to relate to than women customer care executives.

Maha Ayub, 38, marketing professor in Jeddah said that women customer care officials are less helpful and less capable of handling pressure than men.” Firstly, women take hours to understand a problem. Then they call up men to ask what to do. I just walk into the men’s branch and tell them I want service not some Barbie who is too scared to work, for the fear of spoiling her manicure. They laugh and help me out minus the drama.”
…

Last month, Saudi Arabia loosened its rules about young, unattached males in shopping malls. There had been a tendency to keep these guys out of the malls because they behaved badly toward women and girls, harassing them in various ways. Now, the government was stating its expectation that the young men would behave themselves if given the opportunity.

The carrot, however, comes with a stick. Saudi Gazette reports that the government will also seek jail terms for the lads who cannot behave. First-time offenders will face five days behind bars; second-time offenders, 35 days. (One person interviewed talks about a possible 5-year sentence, but where that comes from I can’t tell.)

The matter comes down, though, to the questions of whether harassment will be arbitrarily defined and by whom. If the definition is left open, then courts will be filled with questionable cases, resolved by a combination of wasta (or the lack thereof) and how the judge is feeling that day. Here again is an area where codification of law, with clear definitions, is needed.

I think, overall, that this is the right approach. Rather than categorically assuming that all young men are going to behave badly, this turn puts responsibility for their own behavior directly on young men. By behaving themselves, they avoid risk. By being pests, they put themselves in jeopardy.

An interestingly related point raised in the article concerns whether girls who temp young men or provide come-ons ought not also face similar punishments.

Mixed reaction to prison law for harassers in malls
Mariam Nihal | Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH – There was mixed reaction among residents in the Kingdom to a new rule dictating that men will be imprisoned if found guilty of harassing women in shopping centers.

Coming just a month after Saudi Arabia relaxed severe restrictions on single men entering shopping centers, the new rule has come as a surprise to many in the Kingdom.

Jamal Asaad (name changed), a 35-year-old managing director of a local company in Jeddah said he had a few concerns.
…

Saudi Arabia has no minimum age for marriage. This fact leads to several unhappy outcomes. First, young girls, as young as eight, are sometimes married off by their parents. Their agreement usually involves a hefty payment by the would-be husband, often decades (if not a generation) older than the bride. Various reports, including by Saudi researchers, have found that marriage is not something for small children to undertake for reasons of both psychological and physical health. Then too, child marriage is extremely objectionable to most societies across the world. That Saudi Arabia permits it to continue provides grounds for Saudi-bashing.

Now, Saudi media report, the Ministry of Justice is preparing to announce a minimum age for marriage. The Ministry is not yet prepared to say just what that age is as it is still under discussion.

The major problem facing the Ministry is that child marriage has a long tradition in the region and is not forbidden by Islam. People can point to Islamic history and see that even Mohammed, in a very different time, married Aisha at a young age – various reports say she was 8, 9, or 13.

The fact that something is not forbidden by religion, though, does not mean that it cannot be forbidden by the state. Slavery, too, is permitted within Islam (as it is, textually, within Christianity and Judaism). But societies around the world, including Saudi Arabia in the 1960s, have banned slavery. Not only do attitudes change over time, but circumstances do as well. While child marriage may have made sense when societies were small and under constant threat of annihilation, they no longer do. Saudi society is now mostly urban, tribes and tribal identities are less important, society knows more about the psychology and physiology for young women. Too, the institution of marriage in Saudi Arabia is under great pressure already, with a large proportion of them ending in divorce. Permitting another negative factor to be introduced does nothing to resolve those problems.

While no age is yet stated, I expect it will be set at 13. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were 16, but doubt that Saudi Arabia will go as high as 18, though many of its neighbors have. Saudis go for compromise and consensus and 13 strikes me as the number most likely to find that consensus. This does not mean that that age is fixed forever, though. Once the fact that law can operate in setting a limit, that limit can be later changed. As Saudi society continues to change, as Saudi women continue to be educated and employed, there will be fewer parents who believe that their financial salvation rests in the bodies of their daughters.

Age of consent for marriage of Saudi girls soon
DAMMAM: ARAB NEWS

The Justice Ministry will soon make an announcement to establish the age of consent for Saudi women to marry, local daily Al-Madinah reported yesterday quoting an official source at the ministry.

Director of the Department of Marriage at the ministry Muhammad Al-Babtain said a decision on the issue would soon be announced following the agreement of departments in the ministry involved on deciding on an age of consent.

“The project was discussed by a number of government departments concerned. The ministry deemed it appropriate to decide a certain age for the marriage of the underage girls taking into account its social and psychological aspects,” he said.

Al-Babtain declined to reveal the age of consent for marriage, but said the issue was still being discussed.

He said fixing an age for the marriage of young girls is commensurate with Shariah rules and the culture of the society. “Underage marriages are permissible under Islamic law,” he explained.

Al-Babtain pointed out the ministry had prepared a Shariah-based study that confirmed that marrying young girls was not against Shariah rules.
…