Victories in the field of gender liberation are hardly predictable, but much welcomed no matter the time or place. A huge leap forward comes this week from a country notorious in recent times for its ambivalence towards the plight of women being harassed by fundamentalists while engaging in such unladylike tasks as driving cars. While not expressly forbidden by Saudi law, differing sects in this small desert nation have their own opinions of what activities are indecent for females to partake in. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia this week makes a significant declaration of global female rights, which is one step towards regulating the treatment of women in sterner Islamic societies.
Albeit in political waffle, the King indicated that besides more allowance in being allotted seats of government office, women will be able to ‘nominate’ and perhaps elect their choice of officials. For a country in its infant years of democratic municipal elections, this is a bold and significant opening move. Of course, local discrimination and religious red-tape could bind women who actually do show up to vote in the coming months from making themselves directly heard, but this public statement by the King does put this nation at a bit of a crossroads: if the King enforces gender equality, then so much the better. But hell also hath no fury like a woman scorned; we can expect good things from the Saudi Women’s Revolution and international outrage even if this declaration is reneged.
Emily Canaday
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/25/world/meast/saudi-women-vote/index.html?hpt=wo_c2
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