Alternative headline:
”Arab state where Islam rules every aspect of society, treats women like chattel.”
Saudi Arabia, a place where one can still visit the seventh century and not be in a museum.
NOTE: Wherever Islam reigns supreme, treatment of women and minorities is bound to be horrific.
Women in Saudi Arabia are caught in a system of gender apartheid
No professional or vocational training, no visits to the doctor, no lawsuits without male approval: Yemeni-Swiss political scientist Elham Manea bemoans the plight of women in Saudi Arabia.
I will never forget the words of my father when he turned down an offer to work at our Yemeni embassy in Saudi Arabia in the mid-80s. He simply said: “I have a daughter!”
His words came back to me this October 26, when more than 60 Saudi women’s activists got behind the wheels of their cars protesting against a ban on women driving in the kingdom. Their demand symbolized in a nutshell what it means for a woman to live in Saudi Arabia: perpetual minors in a system of gender apartheid.
Saudi Arabiais the only country in the world that outlaws this right of driving. And yes, depriving a woman of the right to drive serves the purpose of controlling her physical mobility and hence independence. But focusing on the right to drive misses the whole spectrum of the issue.
Systematically treated as perpetual minors
Women in the Kingdom, a 2008 Human Rights Watch report maintains, are systematically treated as perpetual minors through a system instituted by the state that infringes on their basic human rights.
More here. H/T: Fjordman