To Heir is Masculine: A Study of the Effects of Patriarchy in Saudi Arabia
Lauren Cox

           With everything that has been happening this year in the Middle East, it is not surprising that the culture and religion of people living there have sparked the interest of many westerners. People are fascinated by a place where life is so different from their own and where cultural norms can seem somewhat backwards. One country that remarkably shows this difference is Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the reason why Saudi Arabia is so drastically different from western countries is that patriarchy is an esteemed cultural value there, and it influences so many different aspects of life for its citizens. Patriarchy is a form of social organization in which power is passed through the male line, resulting in male domination. Indeed, one can see this value by looking at the many different effects it has on the lifestyles of the people in Saudi Arabia. Areas of life that are affected by patriarchy include government laws, abuse of women and subsequent punishment, employment and education of women, treatment of foreign women, and social places and events.

Since Islam is the official religion of Saudi Arabia, the government enforces most Islamic social and religious norms. This can be unfortunate because Islamic laws tend to discriminate against women, and the government laws serve as a way to enhance this discrimination. A 1997 issue of WIN News gives the reader a list of many government laws that show this discrimination. For example, in a Saudi Arabian court, the testimony of one man equals that of two women (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 2). Public meetings are segregated by sex (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 3). While males can freely travel wherever they wish, Saudi women must get written permission from their closest male relative in order to board public transportation between different parts of the country or abroad, and they are not allowed to undertake domestic or foreign travel alone (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 5 and 8). Women may not legally drive motor vehicles, and they are not allowed to ride in a vehicle driven by a male who is not an employee or a close relative. Furthermore, they must enter city buses by separate entrances and sit in specially designated sections (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 8). A woman cannot even be admitted to a hospital for medical treatment without the consent of a close male relative (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 8). In public, women

are expected to wear the abaya, a black garment covering the entire body, as well as a veil, which covers their head and face (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 9). Finally, Islamic law says that daughters should inherit only half as much of their father’s property as their brothers receive (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 10). Now, these laws do not merely cause minor inconveniences for women; they can actually hinder their lives. For example, in a 2002 article of The Washington Post, Colbert King writes, “One young Saudi woman could not visit her aunt in another city because she needed a ‘travel letter’ giving her permission from the head of her family (her older brother) in order to travel, and he was in a bad mood and wouldn’t give it to her,” (King “When in Saudi Arabia…Do As Americans Do” par. 12). King also tells of an elderly Saudi woman who went to the hospital for surgery and could not sign her own permit for an operation. She had to wait for her fifteen year old nephew to come and sign it because he was her closest male relative (King “When in Saudi Arabia…Do As Americans Do” par. 13).

In addition to laws that restrict women in their everyday lifestyles, there are numerous laws that restrict their marriages. WIN News outlines a number of these laws. For example, women may not marry non-Saudis without government permission. They are prohibited altogether from marrying non-Muslims, while men have the right to marry Christians and Jews (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 2). Women must demonstrate legally specified grounds for divorce, but men may divorce without cause. If divorced or widowed, a woman normally may keep her boys until they reach seven and her girls until they reach nine. After this time, they are awarded to the divorced husband or the deceased husband’s family (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 11). Though these restrictions might seem harsh enough, perhaps one of the worst privileges taken away from these women is the right to decide how many children they shall have. In a 2002 article of Scotland on Sunday, writer Nicole Veash addresses this issue saying, “Many Gulf countries say it is a woman’s Islamic duty to have a large family and not use any form of contraception. They also insist that this is a way for women to fulfil an obligation to their homeland by providing more children,” (Veash par.9). In her article, Veash quotes Dr. Atef Khalifa, coordinator of the UN-founded Pan-Arab Project for Family Health. Khalifa says, “Forcing women to have so many children is definitely a way of controlling them…There is a clear relationship between denying women the choice about the number of children they have and impeding gender equality,” (Veash par. 10). Indeed, birth control is sold on the black market because women are desperate not to have any more children, but they are too scared to tell their husbands (Veash par. 17). Also, the pill is quite expensive and it socially stigmatizes its users (Veash par. 8).

These numerous laws are enforced with the intention of subordinating women, making them completely dependent on males. Indeed, a value such as patriarchy affects such laws; men must further themselves and assert their domination by restricting the rights of women. Furthermore, the marriage laws and the beliefs that a woman’s job is to give birth to many children probably are brought about by the fact that men want to ensure they have someone to carry on the family name, wealth, and power. They also want to ensure that they have ready access to Muslim, Saudi women.

In addition to enforcing laws that hinder women legally, many men go outside the law to assert their authority. In a 2000 issue of The Lancet, Khabir Ahmad says that domestic workers are often locked inside homes, beaten, and raped by their Saudi employers. Many women refuse to report these crimes because current laws make it difficult to do so. If they do report crimes, the government rarely investigates, and many women have experienced unfair trials and even faced execution (Ahmad par. 3 and 4). WIN News reports that female domestic servants sometimes are forced to work twelve to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, authorities often return runaway maids to their abusive employers (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 14). The article adds that although hospital workers report that many women are admitted for treatment of injuries that apparently result from spousal violence, the government does not keep statistics on spousal or other forms of violence against women (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 6). Abuse is not limited to the home, however. In a 2001 issue of The Baltimore Sun, Maureen Dowd states, “The Saudi religious police, the Matawain, use sticks to make sure that women hide beneath their abayas,” (Dowd par. 13). Colbert King adds to this when he quotes an American registered nurse who worked in Riyadh in the 1990s. She says, “I witnessed two young Saudi females get smacked by a mutawa [religious police] with a stick because the wind blew their face veils briefly off their face,” (King “When in Saudi Arabia…Do As Americans Do” par. 14). King goes on to quote another Western health provider who has worked in Saudi Arabia. She says,
I have looked after many mothers or daughters who have NOT wanted to have surgery and a male relative, their husband, father or son has insisted that they have the surgery, and so the surgery is performed…Coronary Artery Bypass Grafts and Valvular Surgery…I have seen women who against their will have undergone these two types of surgery. (King “When in Saudi Arabia…Do As Americans Do” par. 16 and 18)
This passage is important because it again shows that women are not even allowed to decide what is done to their own bodies.

All of these different forms of abuse against women further enhance male domination. Women are afraid of being abused so they do not try to challenge the male authority, and thus they strengthen the status quo. Even if a woman does have enough courage to report an incident, the man rarely is punished. After all, if a man is punished as a result of a woman’s accusation, then the woman has, in effect, won. A man seldom is punished for physical abuse against a woman because that would allow the woman to temporarily dominate a male. If hitting women is in the job description of authorities, then it seems highly unlikely that anyone would consider protecting a woman from abuse in her home.

Another area of life that is affected by patriarchy is the education and employment of women. WIN News states that women have access to free, but segregated, education through the university level. They constitute fifty-five percent of all university graduates, though they are excluded from studying such subjects as engineering, journalism, and architecture (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 11). However, the article then mentions that women make up only five percent of the work force. Most employment opportunities for women are in education and health care with lesser opportunity in business, philanthropy, banking, retail sales, and the media (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 12). There are even laws within the workplace. For example, all workplaces are segregated by sex, and contact with male supervisors or clients is allowed only by phone or fax machine (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 12). In a 2002 article of Financial Times, Roula Khalaf adds that women business owners must have a wakeel, or male agent to represent them in government transactions and on company boards (Khalaf par. 6).

Khalaf proves that many of these labor laws are affected by patriarchy as a deeply rooted cultural value. Referring to educated Saudi women, she writes, “Their ability to put their education and their wealth to the benefit of the country’s development is constrained by a set of discriminatory regulations and deep-seated beliefs that seek to restrict them to the home,” (Khalaf par. 4). Indeed, men do not allow a large number of women to advance in the workforce because it would threaten their own rule. Notice the difference between the percent of university graduates who are women and the percent of women who are in the workforce. With a few simple mathematical calculations, one can see that roughly fifty percent of the workforce is comprised of uneducated men. The extra fifty percent of educated women who are not employed could easily replace these men, and the companies for which they worked would probably be much more productive. However, as Khalaf says, “Government regulations…say that a girl’s education is aimed at ‘giving her the correct Islamic education to enable her to be in life a successful housewife, an exemplary wife, and a good mother,” (Khalaf par. 15). Men only allow women to be educated so that they can better care for their husbands and families. They want women to be able to raise their sons to be the best possible heirs. Furthermore, while men seek jobs to make money and gain prestige, women are not allowed to do the same. Thus, a man retains his position as the head of the family because he is the only source of income for the family.

Saudi women are not the only ones to be affected by these strict patriarchal laws and customs; they affect foreign women as well. WIN News reports that some government officials and ministries still bar accredited female diplomats in Saudi Arabia from official meetings and diplomatic functions (“Saudi Arabia Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996” par. 9). In a 2002 article of People Weekly, Christina Cheakalos, Nancy Day, Maureer Harrington, and Macon Morehouse report that U.S women stationed in Saudi Arabia must cover themselves with a head scarf and an abaya whenever they leave their base (Cheakalos, Day, Harrington, and Morehouse par. 1). On January 23, 2002, the Pentagon did declare wearing the abaya “not mandatory, but strongly encouraged,” (Cheakalos, Day, Harrington, and Morehouse par. 2). However, in reply to this rule change, Sheik Saad al-Saleh, an Islamic Affairs Ministry official, said, “There must be no exception in enforcing the Islamic dress code in Saudi streets,” (Cheakalos, Day, Harrington, and Morehouse par. 3). The authors of this article also report that there are rules forbidding the one thousand servicewomen in Saudi Arabia to leave the base without a male escort, drive a vehicle in public, or sit beside the driver (Cheakalos, Day, Harrington, and Morehouse par. 3). In a 2002 issue of The Washington Post, Colbert King points out that if the deputy chief of mission or the economic counselor (both of whom are women) should wish to go out and get something to eat, they would have to call the motor pool and wait for someone to drive them (King “The Saudi Sellout” par. 8). However, military officials say that these rules are meant merely to smooth relations with such a conservative Islamic nation and to protect women from attacks by fundamentalists (Cheakalos, Day, Harrington, and Morehouse par. 1).

It seems that patriarchal laws possibly would affect foreign women more than they would Saudi women. After all, foreign women are forced to conform to a culture completely different from their own. It also seems wrong that a country such as the United States would force its female officials to obey laws that completely oppose American equal rights laws. When foreigners come to the United States, they are not forced to dress in American style clothing. They are free to act however they wish within the laws of the land. It would seem as if in this case the United States is intimidated by such a strictly patriarchal society. On the other hand, if the norms of a person’s homeland involved running around naked, and they tried doing so in the United States, they would get arrested for indecent exposure. It would be a double standard to say that a place, in which what is considered indecent is anything less than a black cloak covering the entire body, must not force its foreigners to obey its laws.

A value that is as strong to a country as patriarchy is to Saudi Arabia can influence many different aspects of life, including social ones. For example, patriarchy clearly can be seen in the fast food industry. In a 2001 issue of The Washington Post, Colbert King reports that all restaurants in Saudi Arabia have two dining areas as well as two entrances. This includes McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Burger King, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. One section is for women and families, and the other is for males. The male section is typically well kept, comfortable, and up to Western standards, while the family sections are often run-down and neglected. In Starbucks, there are not even seats in the family sections (King “Saudi Arabia’s Apartheid” par. 2 and 5). In a 2002 issue of The Washington Post, Margaret Lindsey writes,
The Starbucks I tried to patronize in Riyadh last spring had a family section that was one-third the size of the men’s section and had no chairs or tables. When I asked about this, the employee behind the counter told my husband to tell me – I was apparently invisible to him – that I was expected to drink my coffee while sitting in our car. (“Apartheid in Saudi Arabia par. 1)
In his article, “The Saudi Sellout”, Colbert King expounds further on this issue. He writes that in Saudi Arabia, the display of the female figure is seen as pornography. The original Starbucks logo that Americans are familiar with, the figure of the mermaid, is thus not appropriate in Saudi Arabia. Starbucks, which is normally quite protective of its logo, actually carries a different one, a triangle shape with a crown, in its Saudi Arabian stores (King “The Saudi Sellout” par. 1-3).

Fast food chains are not the only social scenes where patriarchy is strongly seen, for parties and events show this value as well. In a 2002 issue of The New York Times, Elaine Sciolino tells of when Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia received more than three hundred intellectuals and clerics visiting Saudi Arabia for its annual two-week folklore extravaganza. People came to pay homage, give speeches, ask questions, recite poems, eat, and pray. All but three of the guests were men (Sciolino par. 2). In a 1999 issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Thomas Friedman writes about not just Saudi Arabia, but the Arab world as a whole as he tells of the patriarchy found in the guest list of King Hussein’s funeral. The list of Arabs was comprised entirely of male leaders or their sons and heirs (Friedman par. 2). They all came to pay homage to King Hussein’s son and heir, Abdullah (Friedman par. 2). Friedman points out how much patriarchy is valued when he writes,
While the rest of the world was represented at the funeral largely by elected leaders, the Arab world was represented almost entirely by fathers and sons…While the rest of the world is empowering its people to thrive in the information revolution, the Arab leaders are still trying to buy stability by empowering their sons. (Friedman par. 2)
Although Friedman is referring to many other countries besides Saudi Arabia, the reader sees that Saudi Arabia does share this mindset in which the goal of fathers is to forward their sons.

Patriarchy as a cultural value in Saudi Arabia pervades even such seemingly trivial things as how its citizens act, or are forced to act, in social situations. In dining areas, men assert their power literally by not allowing women to enter their territory. Thus, they maintain a separation that places them on a much higher social level than their female counterparts. Furthermore, since many of the restaurants in Saudi Arabia are American businesses, it shows that patriarchy is so firmly held that other countries are willing to submit to its rules even if they do not agree with them. At parties and social gatherings, men are the ones who represent their countries. By forwarding themselves and their sons, they maintain the power needed to keep Saudi Arabia an extremely patriarchal society, even if it places them far behind the rest of the world.

In her article, Maureen Dowd quotes Robert McElvine, a history professor, when he says, “These men are terrified of women,” (Dowd par. 6). Indeed, Saudi men are afraid of women because they pose as a threat to the power that these men hold so dearly. After all, as the rest of the world inches closer and closer to gender equality, the more strictly a nation such as Saudi Arabia must enforce its patriarchal laws. Patriarchy is so strong in Saudi Arabia that it influences many different aspects of life. In the end, however, all of the effects have the same result; they become ways in which to further this cultural value. Thus, the reader begins to see a circular pattern. Men want to maintain their domination so they do many different things to place themselves on levels higher then women. They create strong discriminatory norms, and these norms make it even more difficult to bring about change. As long as patriarchy has so many effects on Saudi Arabia and the lives of its citizens, it will always be a strong cultural value.

Works Cited

Ahmad, Khabir. “Amnesty International Denounces Treatment of Saudi Women.” The Lancet 7 October 2000. 15 March 2002
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Cheakalos, Christina., Day, Nancy., Harrington, Maureen., and Morehouse, Macon. “Dress Blues: Fighter Pilot Martha McSally Battles To Liberate U.S Servicewomen in Saudi Arabia From a Confining Cloak.” People Weekly 11 February 2002. 15 March 2002 http://web5.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/

Dowd, Maureen. “All Oppression of Muslim Women Must Stop.” The Baltimore Sun 21 November 2001. 15 March 2002
http:// web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document

Friedman, Thomas. “The Father of All Problems; The Guest List at King Hussein’s Funeral Shows That the Arab World Is Still a Place Where Patriarchy Rules.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 17 February 1999. 15 March 2002
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document

Khalaf, Roula. “Saudi Women Carve a Place in the Future of Their Country.” Financial Times 25 January 2002. 15 March 2002
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document

King, Colbert. “Saudi Arabia’s Apartheid.” The Washington Post 22 December 2001. 15 March 2002 http://web. lexis-nexis.com/universe/document

King, Colbert. “The Saudi Sellout.” The Washington Post 25 January 2002. 15 March 2002 http://web.lexis-nexis.com/ universe/document

King, Colbert. “When in Saudi Arabia…Do as Americans Do.” The Washington Post 2 February 2002. 15 March 2002
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document

Lindsey, Margaret. “Apartheid in Saudi Arabia.” The Washington Post 27 January 2002. 15 March 2002 http://web.lexis- nexis.com/universe/document

“Saudi Arabia (Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1996)” WIN News Spring 1997. 15 March 2002
http://web5. infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark

Sciolino, Elaine. “Riyadh Journal; Taking a Rare Peek Inside the
Royal House of Saud.” The New York Times 28 January 2002. 15 March 2002
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document

Veash, Nicole. “Rich Pickings For Drug Traffickers As Islamic Women Defy Their Husbands To Take the Pill” Scotland on Sunday 6 January 2002. 15 March 2002
http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document