Does Saudi Feminism Exist?

el-Fassi, Hatoon Ajwad. "Does Saudi Feminism Exist?." Arab Feminisms: Gender and Equality in the Middle East. Ed. Jean Said Makdisi, Noha Bayoumi and Rafif Rida Sidawi. London: I.B.Tauris, 2014. 121–131. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 31 May 2022. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780755607426.ch-010>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 31 May 2022, 21:06 UTC. Access provided by: University of Manchester Copyright © Jean Said Makdisi, Noha Bayoumi and Rafif Rida Sidawi (The Lebanese Association of Women Researchers) 2014. All rights reserved. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 10 Does Saudi Feminism Exist?* Hatoon Ajwad el-Fassi** This chapter asks an existential question about Saudi feminism. It is a question foreign to Saudi society, even for Saudi academics, since not a single Saudi university has a department of feminist studies, women’s studies or women’s history. There are so far no research centres devoted to any of these subjects for many reasons, chief among which is the absence of independent non-governmental institutions, civil society and charitable women’s organizations. Even the term ‘gender’ has negative connotations here because the fearful associate it with a plot by the United Nations and its organizations to Westernize Saudi Arab Muslim society, and break down its solidarity. The term is practically non-existent in Saudi Arabia, except among very small, specialized circles; but does this mean that Saudi feminism does not exist as well? It is perhaps better to put the question thus: are Saudi women interested in feminism? My answer is that, although many Saudi women may never have heard of Simone de Beauvoir or The Feminine Mystique, news of the feminist movements in Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq and the Gulf region that were part of the national liberation movements and the anti-colonial struggle, and maintained contact with the Arabian Peninsula through the hajj and trade, were carried by the Saudi, Egyptian, Lebanese and Iraqi newspapers and magazines to the farthest corners of the Peninsula. We should also not forget the role that radio has played in disseminating information to large swathes of Saudi society, among those who read and those who do not alike. 122 arab feminisms That which is named and that which is understood When addressing this particular question we have to distinguish between what can be named, and what is simply understood. For while we cannot categorically determine the extent to which feminism or its use are widespread in Saudi Arabia, the concept of feminism as an awareness that there are discriminatory rules, notions and practices against women, regardless what names these are given, has always been there. Also, everpresent has been an awareness that this discrimination is mainly due to the dominant culture, the way religion is understood, and the behavioural patterns associated with customs and traditions. As in other parts of the Arab world, though at different times, the issues of education and labour are the two main contributors to social and cultural change in the condition of Saudi women. They are also the main factors through which the role of women in society, the level of their participation and their awareness of their status and rights can be measured. Many newspaper debates took place between men and women in which such things as women’s education and work outside the home, without arguments from feminism or Western feminist movements, might have shed a positive light on the efforts of Saudi women. However, we are certainly not talking here about a comprehensive feminist movement, but about limited stands taken by women in different parts of the country, as individuals or small groups. I would like to refer here to an important article by Thoraya Qabel that drew attention to this early awareness, in her response to a 1959 article in Quraish magazine that described women as ‘mentally and religiously deficient’. Monitoring feminist awareness in Saudi Arabia should primarily be linked to writing, the forum of choice for self-expression. This does not mean, however, that we should ignore the experience of the many women who were deprived of education, or of the ability to read and write, although documentation of their oral history and experience acquired through resistance, education, work and participation in the public sphere is still limited. What they left behind is a testament to the wealth of their experience, and to the long and bitter struggle Saudi women went through to pave the way for our own generation and generations to come.1 When monitoring various levels of feminist awareness, we should look at the social discourse, at how it dealt with the cause of women, and how this cause provided an open forum for individual and social relationships of power and authority to express themselves, individually and collectively. Does Saudi Feminism Exist? 123 Women before the coming of formal education It is clear that educated women in the early stage of social development were primarily members of the upper and middle classes because many of the schools that existed then were private; alternatively, families sometimes sent their daughters abroad for their education. Women from these two classes benefited from their education and travel by coming into contact with other cultures, and learning about other women’s experiences, which opened to them new avenues of knowledge and allowed them to interact with Arab and Islamic movements outside their immediate milieus. However, from the time formal education was established and became available to everyone in the early 1960s, successive events in the region left their mark on Saudi history, and affected awareness and the reactions to them in different stages. The onset of education was an important stage, as were both the oil boom, which introduced modern materialism, and the religious revival that Islamized regime and society. The Gulf War had a different kind of importance because it Islamized women and the conflict surrounding them, and the second millennium was an important stage because it was linked to September 11 and the wave of reforms. Each of these stages needs to be separately studied, evaluated and analysed. The first signs of revival began in the Hijazof in the 1930s, when the earliest feminist literature, excerpts from the diary of a Hijazi woman, was published by Ahmad al-Seba≥i in 1934. This was followed by a number of articles written openly under women’s names, the first in 1951, by Latifah al-Khatib, in the daily al-bilad. In the late 1950s, newspapers began devoting a page – most of which was written by women – to women’s issues. The daily Harra≥, owned by Professor Saleh Jamal, was the first to do so in 1957 (the page was entitled the Women’s Harra≥), which was edited by Nabila Khalil, followed in 1959 by Ahmad al-Subai≥l’s Quraish magazine, and Ahmad abdel-Ghafour ≤Attar’s ≤Okaz. The 1960s This period marks the beginning of women’s formal education despite strong religious opposition from within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that culminated in placing girls’ education under the control of the Mufti and the religious establishment, to ensure that girls were brought up according to a specific philosophy that required them to be obedient wives and good mothers. An unexpectedly large number of girls enrolled in formal 124 arab feminisms education, and schools quickly spread throughout the Kingdom, as did teacher-training colleges. Eventually the ‘General Directorate for Girls’ Education’ established higher education colleges for girls to allow them to assume leadership positions within the institution, and began giving Master and Doctoral degrees. The number of these colleges had risen to 102 by the time the independent status of the ‘General Directorate for Girls’ Education’ came to an end, and it was merged in 2002 with what we know today as the ‘Ministry of Education’, which controlled the education of boys. The spread of public education had a strong impact on writing and self-expression by creating a nucleus of well-read women and female writers from all the social classes, rather than just one. The 1960s witnessed feminist stirrings that could be seen as paving the way for future stages, and, although limited in scope, they were echoes of events unfolding on the international feminist scene. The middle of the decade witnessed the formation of a Saudi women’s association under the name ‘The Saudi Arab Women’s Union’, with an elected board of directors and president. The post of president went to author Samira Khashoggi, who in 1965 headed the Saudi al-Nahda Women’s Association, which she established in 1962 along with Muthaffar Adham, Princess Sarah al-Faysal and her sister Princess Latifa. Samira Khashoggi also headed the al-Jazeera Cultural Girls’ Club and its library in Riyadh, the capital, and news of her election was posted in the daily Yamama, on 2 April 1965. In that same year, Samira Khashoggi was also elected president of the Saudi Arab Women’s Union.2 This same period also witnessed the establishment of a number of other associations, such as the Committee of al Sweilem’s Saudi Girls School for Literature and Writing in Riyadh, which between 1960 and 1962 published a number of articles under the Committee’s name, and a different girl’s name for each article. In the eastern region of the Kingdom, ARAMCO, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, played an important role in opening the door for women’s participation in the public sphere. Some women’s associations benefited from the opportunity, however much that particular forum was rather ‘fenced in’, as Modawy al-Rashid termed it. Among these was the Thahran Women’s Society, which had both Saudi and American female employees. In the early 1980s, poet Badia Kashgari established and headed the Women’s Arabic Speaking Group, which brought together a group of well-educated women, such as businesswoman Samia al-Idrissi, plastic artist Munira Mosly, architect Nayla Mosly, social expert Munira al-Mane≥ and activist Amina al-Jassem. For a certain time, the Group also published Aseel magazine.3 Does Saudi Feminism Exist? 125 The 1970s The 1970s saw an economic boom that helped expand education and build more schools, institutes and universities. Among these was the University Studies Centre for Girls at King Saud University, founded in 1976, which helped expand formal education to include higher education, in order to prepare women for high positions in the education, health and social domains. This enriched the base with increasing numbers of well-educated women, both readers and writers, and gave us a number of women academics specializing in feminist related subjects, or women whose studies in the 1970s and 1980s were based on feminist tenets. I recall from among these the names of Thoraya al-Turki in anthropology, Aisha alMane≥ in sociology, Fatina Shaker in sociology, Badia Kashgari in literature and translation, Suad al-Mane≥ in literary critique, Munira al-Nahed in sociology, Fawzia al-Bakr in the fundamentals of education, Aziza al-Mane≥ in curricula, Sharifa al-Shamlan in social services, Fawzia Abu Khaled in political sociology, Munira Mosly in plastic arts and Madiha al-≤Ajroush in photographic art. Feminism was not understood as an outward physical expression – like showing one’s hair, face or body – despite the fact that feminism has a lot to do with a woman’s relationship with her body, its identity and her attitude towards it. This was not an indicator in Saudi Arabia because a woman’s appearance, especially outside the country, reflected her status, social class and openness to foreign societies. The importance of a woman’s outer appearance as an ideological position is associated with another group of Saudi women, who hail mainly from the eastern and middle provinces, involved in a leftist political movement that was banned in the early 1980s. In the period that preceded the oil boom, the rest of the country took a conciliatory attitude regarding whether to cover more or less of a woman’s body, an attitude that started to wane in the mid-1970s. This prompted a number of female poets to openly express their views on the right of women to make their own decisions, take control of their own lives and adopt whatever model they saw fit. A typical example of this trend was Fawzia Khaled’s 1975 volume of poetry: ila matta yakhtafounik laylat ≤ursik (Until When Will They Continue to Kidnap You on Your Wedding Night) and Badia Kashgari’s sourati wa ghairiha (My Own Image and Others). Feminist thought manifests itself best in the political positions of the Saudi feminist movement. Feminism is evident when women from different 126 arab feminisms backgrounds take positions and engage in political activities that prove their existence and express their position vis-à-vis all that goes on around them, especially the Palestinian and other liberation causes in the Arab world, particularly in the Arabian Gulf region. Women have been engaging in literary, artistic, social or political activities across all regions of Saudi Arabia as far back as the 1960s, if not earlier. On the other hand, some women, like Khairiya al-Saqqaf, Jaheeer al-Musa≥ed and Nawal Bakhsh, called for rights through poetry and prose without necessarily taking any political positions. We could also say in general that although the media’s outlook was not necessarily feminist, it did voice demands and reflect its female employees’ positions in its capacity as their window to the public, and the world at large. The 1980s The 1980s marked the beginning of a more hard-line feminist discourse developed in response to events on the political scene early in the decade. Al-Haram al-Sharif (the Noble Sanctuary) in Mecca was attacked at the end of 1979 and occupied by a group led by Jheiman al-≤Otaibi and Mohammad bin Abdalla al-Kahtani, who claimed to be the Mahdi (the Redeemer, who will come in the future). The two leaders and their 60 followers were executed in January 1980, but the ideology expressed in Jheiman al-≤Otaibi’s famous sermon, part of which addressed the status of women, called for more conservatism and for imposing restrictions on the media, and was gradually adopted by the government. In an interview with the satellite television station al-Arabiya on 14 July 2004, Prince Khaled al-Faisal said: ‘It was a mistake to destroy the group that committed Jheiman al-≤Otaibi’s’s crimes and ignore the ideology that stood behind it as if it never existed, allowing it thus to propagate throughout the country; it was a big mistake.’4 This is a very important admission, and the adoption of the ideology might even have been unintended. However, regardless of whether it was intended or not, the result was that it became reality, and more restrictions were imposed on the media and women. Fear of addressing women’s issues was evident in texts and subjects to be included in school curricula; the texts warn of the dangers of intellectual invasion, especially that which seeks to Westernize and liberate Saudi women. From this moment up to the 1990s, a large number of booklets targeting women began to appear in schools, institutes, colleges, universities, hospitals, commercial centres, Does Saudi Feminism Exist? 127 prayer areas and airports calling on them to tighten their hijab, stay at home and accept polygamy to help solve the problem of men who cannot control their instincts in public. The 1980s also witnessed a conflict between different ideological schools that turned into a religious rivalry centring round modernity vs. conservatism. What is noteworthy in this two-party rivalry is that women became the main issue that each side saw as part of the literary and public discourses within the conflict.5 Various theories arose to explain the hard-line campaign against women; some linked it to the Kingdom’s delicate political and economic circumstances at the time, as a result of the regional repercussions of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Iran–Iraq War in 1980 and the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the resistance to which greatly benefited from Saudi political and material support. Moreover, Saudi Arabia was experiencing an economic crisis at the time as a result of a drop in oil prices that negatively impacted many service, maintenance and infrastructure building projects. This put social issues on the back burner and allowed extremism to spread in schools, universities and the media. The 1990s Then came the 1990s, the Second Gulf War and the reaction of some women to the ominous changes taking place in the country. These women decided to participate by protecting themselves by themselves. They dismissed their foreign drivers and demonstrated their intentions by driving their own cars around the streets of Riyadh on 6 November 1990. For me, this moment marked the beginning of a new history for modern Saudi women by sharpening the feminist discourse, dividing society into several fronts and crystallizing a variety of positions on the issue. Three distinct positions emerged: one that supported the right of women to drive, one that opposed, and a middle position that supported this right but only outside the Kingdom. This variety in the positions led to different modes of implementation on the ground. The issue was dressed in religious garb and those who dared address it felt as if they were breaking a taboo. Those who remember the early 1990s cannot ignore the social struggle in which the subject of women was used as a tool and a means of venting anger, thus conspiring to keep the cause an object of contention. Women adopted this extremist position, which associates religion with every social custom, in their journalism as well as in their religious 128 arab feminisms discourse. But what have cars and driving them to do with our social customs, to be documented and rooted in our traditions? Thus, the 1990s generated a different atmosphere for feminism, characterized by fear and restrictions on rights and self-expression. The women who drove their cars in Riyadh found themselves without jobs and under the threat of death or isolation, as did their husbands, fathers and those who sympathized with them. Preachers in mosques contributed to the effort by defaming women, then forbidding them from raising court cases against those who defamed them, despite the presence of witnesses and recorded evidence. Despite the fact that women returned to their jobs and classes two and a half years later, the wound is still open, and society has not yet completely healed. Nor did the religious institutions forgive or choose to overlook those who dared challenge the status quo, even if it had nothing to do with religion. What is strange is that there is no documented evidence from that period, either from the historic or the social perspectives, and very few studies and articles dared broach this subject or feminism, especially after 1990, due to the long list of taboos involved. These taboos compelled women in general, and women writers in particular, to avoid addressing the subject openly, due, on the one hand, to the media blackout and, on the other, to the fear of being associated with those in disfavour. Very few voices dared come out in the open. What helped the ‘crisis decade’ last so long was the infiltration and control of the media and education by the extremists, and the fact that the state turned a blind eye on their movements, allowing them to be the sole voices heard. The stigma of being classified has persisted, and is still pursuing those who address women’s issues or their rights. Their demands are distorted, and simplified, ‘calling for women’s liberation’, words that carry a host of negative connotations. ‘Women’s liberation’ means to the extremists liberation from morality, religion and sacred customs and traditions, and a call to emulate the Western women. The automatic comparison of liberation with sexual freedom, homosexuality and open social relations is a reflection of the contradictions brewing in our souls, for these have always been rejected in our society. It is important to note that the decade of the 1990s was also one of internal political movements, when certain groups tried to establish legal religious institutions using provocative tactics to achieve their aims, which displeased the security establishment and led to the arrest of large numbers of people. However, these movements had the same hard-line views on women, and thus garnered no support from them. The open-mindedness Does Saudi Feminism Exist? 129 that began in the mid-1990s motivated the local press to start opening up towards others, and to tolerate a louder women’s voice. The millennium The most important sign of change in the new millennium, as far as women are concerned, was the signing of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 2000. The key factor is the ratification by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia of an international convention involving a series of commitments on women, in response to international pressure by the United Nations to improve its legal reputation. Eight years later, in January 2008, the country submitted its first report to the United Nations, which coincided with a shadow report by an anonymous group of Saudi women who called themselves ‘Women for Reform’.6 With the events of 11 September 2001, the public started understanding for itself the level of excess and extremism permeating the country. The explosions that occurred in the heart of the capital, Riyadh, on 12 March 2003 put Saudi society face-to-face with itself for the first time. The media (which by then had expanded its scope) helped the public, when it realized that the culprits were Saudis and not foreigners, to accept the opinions of those who honestly call things by their names. The reform process that followed addressed various issues. In 2002, 15 students from a girls’ middle school in Mecca met their death in a fire because of the prevalent views on women, and the restrictions imposed upon them by the religious authorities that controlled girls’ schools, which allowed conservative tenets precedence over the sanctity of the soul and the right to life. After 42 years of girls’ education having been in the hands of the religious authorities, this event led to a decision by the political leadership to merge girls’ and boys’ schools. In 2003 came the first admission that there was indeed a women’s issue that deserved to be examined and debated in the Third National Dialogue held by the King Abdul Aziz Center for National Dialogue in Medina. The conference was entitled ‘The Rights of Women’, but was forced under pressure from certain currents to add the words ‘and Responsibilities’ to the conference’s title, because some people had not given up the contention that Saudi women had no cause, and that the claim to one was simply a figment of the liberated Western woman’s imagination. However, although the Third National Dialogue was exceptional in the general context of things, it did manage to tackle unprecedented issues, such as violence 130 arab feminisms against women, women in school curricula, women and labour, education, customs, legitimate rights, divorce, custody, alimony, the attitude of the courts towards women, and women and poverty. Despite the courage it took to address them, these issues remain hostage to the social vicious circle in which society is entrapped. Such matters as women and labour, or whether women’s work outside the home is allowed in Islam, are still being rehashed over and over again, even though the Saudi press had already debated them as long ago as the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. The Third National Dialogue conference was followed by a women’s campaign to promote their participation in the municipal elections of 2004. This campaign was based on the promise that they would be allowed to take part, but, though the authorities admitted that women do have the right to vote and run as candidates, the promise was shelved, and women were told they needed preparation and could only run in the following elections. However, the next elections, due to take place in 2008 or 2009, were postponed. Still, other developments followed in favour of what I have labelled the ‘Saudi women’s reform project’, which calls for granting women a firm right to equal citizenship with men, and full participation in the political, economic, social, educational and religious development of their society. There are several varieties of Saudi feminism. Most are based on religious discourse, though with variations, such as the extremist religious discourse, the less extremist religious discourse, and the implied religious discourse. However, there exist also a modern feminist discourse, a non-Islamic or non-religious discourse, and one based on the internet.7 Many questions remain unanswered: what should we call Saudi women’s legal movements, creativity, academic excellence and cultural refinement? Is it Western feminism, Islamic feminism, Arab feminism, Saudi feminism or several kinds of feminism at the same time? How do Saudi women view themselves and their relationship with other women, the already initiated feminists? Perhaps we should simply accept the title ‘Saudi feminisms’. Notes * Translated from the Arabic. ** King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 1. Example given in detail by Thoraya Qabel to Sharifa Noor al-Hashemi in Hoqool, his booklet published in 2009, 5 (September 2007), p. 117. Does Saudi Feminism Exist? 131 2. The sharifa Nour al Hashemi, ‘imr≥a saudiah min jeel alumahat alawa≥el, lamhat min hayati fi tajribat al≤amal w≥al bouh’ (A Saudi woman of the early generations of mothers: scenes from my life in experiencing work and the telling of it), Huqoul 5, 2007, pp. 109–17: Ahmad al Wassel, ‘Samira Khashoqji: samira bint aljazeera al≥arabiya, 1939–1986’ (Samira Khashoqji: samira, daughter of the Arabian peninsula, 1939–1986) Huqoul 5, 2007, pp. 90–1. 3. Interview conducted by Hatoon el-Fassi with Ms Badi≥a Kashghari in Riyadh, 30 July 2009. 4. Mentioned by media consultant Hamed Abbas, Okaz, in his column of 18 December 2009. 5. Saddeka Arebi (2004), Women & Words in Saudi Arabia (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 260–2. 6. Saudi Women for Reform (2008), ‘The Shadow Report for CEDA’, available at www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cedaw/docs/ngos/womenreform40.pdf, accessed 16 October 2013. 7. Details of the different kinds can be found in the proceedings of the Mecca Cultural and Literary Club’s seminar: Reading the Present and Looking Towards the Future, March 2009.