Women of the Holy Kingdom

Discovery Times had an interesting show on Saudi women.  It will be shown again several times on Feb 7th.

http://times.discovery.com/tvlistings/episode.jsp?episode=0& amp;cpi=110414&gid=0&channel=DTC

Well, the reporter was a woman from Pakistan.  She and her all female film crew toured Saudi Arabia talking to women and men about the Woman's movement in Saudi.  They were provided with a chaperone, but it was very interesting the things that happened.

While filming on one street the Moral Police showed up and said the all woman crew was attracting too much attention.  Even though they had a government chaperone, they were going to shut them down.

They showed clips of a Saudi sitcom that I wouldn't mind watching.  In one scene, the women who are home alone are frightened by an intruder.  They throw on their abayas and call the police.  They are standing veiled on the sidewalk and the policemen start to enter the home to look for the intruder and they ask the ladies where their father is.  They say he is not home.  The policeman apologizes and tells them he cannot enter the home unless their male relative is home and leaves them.   In another scene, an unmarried woman is under the care of her VERY elderly father who sees every man as a threat.  So he hits any man who mistakenly walks to close with his cane.

She talked to educated women, common women, tribal women.  She talked to short lived political candidates, female journalists and reformers.

She talked to a member of the Saudi government, TV producers, male journalists and a member of the moral police.

She went to Starbucks and had to sit in a segregated area with her crew, yet she had to purchase her coffee from a strange man.

She was only able to eat from one of the 5 restaurants in her hotel or order room service.

But, it wasn't all negative.

She talked with a female architect about the improvements for educated women. 

She talked with a Journalist for the Arab News who was able to see changes in her work place.

And she talked to a few women in a factory, which a few years ago would have never happened.  They expressed hope and faith that their daughters would have more opportunities for education and employment.

She also met several powerful men who were supportive of women having a more active role in Saudi's future.

My husband was rivoted and he's only shown a passing interest in such things. 

The strangest thing I found was that she found the most ardent critics of the Women's movement to be other women.

About the right to vote, one YOUNG educated woman pointed out that the western women had to wait for their turn.

Women in one market called the crew Immoral for filming around men, and other women felt that they were better off with the restrictions on them.  They were more protected.

As a western woman, this is hard for me to understand this mentality, but I guess I can understand the fear having lived in a lot more liberal areas than I do now.

Its a fine line to walk between western values of freedom and equality and keeping out the liberalism and moral decay.  I see the struggles here in Utah as Mormon girls must chose between living a gospel life and joining their non mormon friend's fashion and lifestyle choices.  Where a member of my Church refused to play that "Brokeback Mountain" movie and was publically criticized because of his closemindedness. 

However, I did not agree with the man that said women belong only in the home simple because they are women.  Khadija was a business owner and no good muslim would ever question her virtue because she worked outside her and the Prophets home.