In 2014, the World Economic Forum ranked Saudi Arabia 130 out of 142 countries in their

Global Gender Gap Index. This index was started in 2006, and ranks countries based on four
critical areas of inequality between men and women. These categories are:
Economic participation and opportunity outcomes on salaries, participation levels and access to
high-skilled employment
Educational attainment outcomes on access to basic and higher level education
Political empowerment outcomes on representation in decision-making structures
Health and survival outcomes on life expectancy and sex ratio
As you can see in the chart, Saudi Arabia scores highly in education and health; however, the
country suffers in economic attainment and political empowerment. Specifically, women are only
13% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia (despite there being more female university graduates in
the country than male). It also received a score of .08 for legislators, senior officials and
managers, and a 0.0 for both women as heads of state and women in ministerial positions.
They are also one of the few countries to not accept the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. They claim this is a violation of Sharia law, which is the religious law forming part of the
Islamic tradition, and is predominantly derived from religious texts, such as the Quaron. For
example, it includes sections about how people have the freedom to change their religion and
beliefs- which Saudi Arabia disagrees with. Its interesting to note that other countries, such as
Pakistan (which also follows Sharia law) have ratified the declaration, and have criticized Saudi
Arabia for not doing so.
That is not to say that there hasnt been any progress in the country. Women in Saudi Arabia over
the age of 18 have a literacy rate of 91%, and they are the fifth most improved country in the
world on educational attainment, ranking a 1 (so the highest score) on women in primary and
tertiary education. In fact, like I said earlier, today more Saudi graduates are women than men.
Another positive step towards equality includes women voting in elections as of 2015.
One predominant obstacle that is still very present today in regard to gender equality in Saudi
Arabia is the guardianship system. All females in Saudi Arabia must have a guardian, regardless
at age. First its her father, when shes married it becomes her husband, and if widowed or
divorced it falls on another family member- sometimes even her son. This has a lot if
implications- the guardian has control over whether they can go to universities, take certain jobs,
marry, go to court and other important life decisions.
With this framework in mind, I now want to go into the Saudi Arabian Feminist movement. One
prominent example of activism in the country is the Association for the Protection and Defense
of Womens Rights in Saudi Arabia. One of their leaders, Wajeha al-Huwaider, was interviewed
in 2008 and described the goals of the organization as focusing on:
The representation for women in shari'a courts;
setting a minimum age for girls' marriages;
allowing women to take care of their own affairs in government agencies and allowing them to
enter government buildings;
protecting women from domestic violence, such as physical or verbal violence,
or keeping her from studies, work, or marriage, or forcing her to divorce ...
As you can see, many of these issues go back to the issues I mentioned earlier, such as
guardianship.
This organization works to gain political rights and independence for women, and they stemmed
out of a campaign in 2007 that was focused on womens right to drive. In 1990, the informal
prohibition on state driving became state policy. During the Gulf War, Saudi women saw female
American soldiers driving on military bases in their country, and organized a protest. In response,
officials arrested them, suspended them from their jobs, and the Grand Mufti, the countrys most
senior religious authority, immediately declared a fatwa, or religious edict, against women
driving, stating that driving would expose women to temptation and lead to social chaos. In
September of 2007, they amassed over 11 thousand signatures for a petition that was ultimately
ignored by King Abdullah, who was ruling at that time.
In 2008, they launched another campaign against the oppression of women called No to the
Oppression of Women, which aimed to give women and victims in the society a voice through
personal stories and recordings put on YouTube. Later that year, they were warned to not hold
any more protests.
I wanted to spend some time discussing other feminist movements that have emerged in Saudi
Arabia. For example, despite the 2007 campaign protesting the prohibition of women drivers
being unsuccessful, there have been multiple campaigns to protest the fatwa against women
driving since. In May 2011, Manal al-Sharif posted an 8-minute video online which showed
herself driving while articulating a cogent rationale for why women in Saudi Arabia should be
allowed to drive. In this video, she highlights the impracticalities of women having to rely on
male drivers, as well as the expense of hiring them or alternatively catching taxis just so that they
can go about their daily lives. She also provides real examples to prove the poor logic of the law,
such as road accidents caused by young boy children given the wheel because their mothers were
afraid of getting caught by the religious police, the Mutaween. Her video was viewed over 700
thousand times before it was taken down four days later and Manal al-Sharif was imprisoned.
Women2drive then called on women with foreign licenses to start driving. This was taken up
more recently as well, such as in October 26th of 2013, when women were encouraged to get
behind the wheel and drive to end the prohibition as part of the women2drive campaign. The
campaign has been very active on social media, making use of facebook, youtube, and twitter.
Not being able to drive anywhere yourself is in itself a daily hassle. It means you need a man to
visit friends, or even just go to the store. It effectively puts their movement within the control of
mens veto power. However, though I have focused some of my presentation on womens
inability to drive, and that seems to be the most popularized in the media today, Saudi Arabias
oppression on women goes way beyond the ban on driving. Womens guardian has essentially
the same power as a parent to a child. They need mans approval to do anything that involves
going outside the house. This effectively consigns women to second-class citizenship. Saudi
women activists understand this, but they see their efforts to overturn the driving ban as part of a
much larger effort against oppression.
Finally, it is important to note that not all women in Saudi Arabia feel oppressed. For example,
Rowdha Yousef is the founder of a campaign called My guardian knows whats best for me.
The group was able to gather a petition of over 5,400 signatures in 2009 to ask King Abdullah to
ignore the requests of the radical liberal groups. They instead believe there are ways for them
to be free within the confines of the guardian system.