By: Nawal El-Youssef
Mom12@hotmail.com

      The Saudi woman currently faces a crisis. She should choose between what she wants for herself, for her society, and for her nation and what the extremist religious groups-both inside and outside Saudi Arabia-want from her. Opposition to her desires also comes from those men in her life who play the everyday roles of husbands, fathers, sons, relatives, and strangers as well as from secular and liberal men. These men claim to be tolerant supporters of women's rights but in fact they do not respect the Saudi woman's desire to impact her society and move outside the private sphere of her family nor do they respect her freedom of expression or her ambitions.

      Recently, the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan wrote that there is a Sheikh "Da'aya" propagating of Islam who does not mind if women teach other women the rules of Islam through satellite channels. This same Sheikh mentioned that 90% of Saudi women do not mind unveiling their faces and keeping only their Hijab; he added that several religious jurists said that women can unveil their hands and faces. These statements provoked Sheikh Al-Fawzan to reply that both the woman's voice and image are awra [the part of a person's body that must be covered before everybody but a spouse]. In the major Islamic nations other than Saudi Arabia, some women do not even wear the Hijab and others wear the wide Jelbab and cover their hair in the Islamic manner. In these nations, women are not forced to cover their faces because Islam does not prohibit women from uncovering their faces. Muslim women are not committing a sin when they wear Islamic dress without putting makeup on their faces. The question then is: Why does the matter of unveiling provokes such a violent reaction from Saudi ulema? Why do they deprive the Saudi woman of the right to tolerance of Islam? Why don't the extremist ulema and others apply qyas [reasoning through analogy] in this and other matters related to increasing the participation of Saudi women in public matters? Why do they close the door of ijtihad in these issues? Why do they want the Saudi woman to remain ignorant of rights? Why do they want to exclude her? Why do consider her to be a shame upon society? Why do they consider her voice and image awra? Why do they banish her from the sphere of the living and hide her from the eyes of the other, whether that other be her own kin, the sons of the nation, another human being like herself, or even the entirety of modern civilization?

      Is it not enough that she has been deprived of education because men were ignorant of the importance of women's education? Is it not enough that they relegate her to the fields of nursing, teaching, and gynecology even though if given the opportunity she would achieve what men could not achieve for her nation and the entire Muslim world? Why do men believe women to be evil and consider her employment in the public realm shameful? Is it not better for her to work and keep her mind busy with work instead of occupying her with thoughts of her deprivation that will turn her into an enemy of society?

      Would it not be better that she feels that she has a mission in society and an active role in its renaissance instead of being permanently detained in her house, a captive audience of the corrupting force of the satellite channels? Do men think truly believe that if they close all doors to the woman who seeks participation in society she will capable of raising a generation that is decent, educated, and willing to serve society? Those who have not cannot give and those who are lazy from their head to their feet are incapable of planting the seeds of diligence in the hearts of the new generation? Look at the huge numbers of this and the former generation who were raised by stay at home mothers and who have become delinquents, strays, terrorists, and thieves who steal from the homes others to buy drugs, cars, and fancy technology.

      I do not understand why they ignore and forget the voice of the Saudi woman when talking about her and her needs and issues. Even when they provide the opportunity to speak, they choose only women who agree with those men who do not want the world to hear the Saudi woman's voice or to know about her achievements and her ambitious desires for civic participation.

      The London based Sharq al-Awset published a review of a study by Baroness Susan Greenfield, a famous British scientist who is a professor at Oxford University and the first woman to become the director of the Royal Institute in Britain, the world's oldest independent institution for scientific inquiry. In this study, as reported by Sharq al Awset, it was said that the future is for women. Susan Greenfield claims that "the rapid growth witnessed in production techniques and the changing rhythm in the work places eradicate the differences between women and men and gives women a greater opportunity to enter what were traditionally male jobs. Modern development in the medical field help women delay establishing families; artificial insemination and fetus transplantation decrease and even eliminate the need for men. Women can do without men." The British newspaper The Daily Meal recently reported Susan Greenfield's expectations that pressures on women to choose between family and work will disappear totally because new technology has provided women with the ability to preserve her ovaries to use in the future. Recently, American scientists declared that they had succeeded in practically eradication the postmenopausal condition by isolating and freezing the vital cells of a young woman's ovary to be retranslated several years later. With this technology, the scientists claim, women can choose the age at which they desire to have babies.

      Such technology gives women the freedom to choose both to work and to establish her family life whenever she wants. Thus, the Baroness Susan Greenfield asks what exactly the role of the man is and what is the nature of his essential benefit. Susan Greenfield's views were broadcasted by the BBC2 on a show with the title "What if Women Ruled?" In Greenfield's view, with women's power increasing in all areas of life and with female students performing better than male students, women control has already begun. According to Greenfield, "The future will be feminine for many reasons, the most outstanding of which the switch from heavy industrial production requiring muscle-power to intellectual labor that can be performed before the computer screen." She added, "The situation of women is no longer compromised due to women's inability to carry or use heavy machinery; in addition, the ability to easily work from home allow the women to both work and raise children simultaneously." Official British statistics show that 55% of mothers with children under five are working in several different fields. Thus, for the first time in history women who stay at home are the minority. Three out of five new mothers returned to the workforce because they could not afford to stay at home. But the Baroness thinks that this situation will change "in the future" because working from home will gradually become widespread.

      We do not agree with everything that these studies report. But we need men to understand that the situation has changed; the Saudi woman is no longer the woman some Saudi men unfortunately want her to be: the house-wife who leaves the house only when she goes to her grave. We are in the 21st century. The age of Saudi women covered in black has passed. Our nation now faces a growth in terrorist and criminals who hide beneath the black gown of women to escape from state security. If Saudi women, who constitute half of society, are to participate in public life and join the new labor force they need to wear only the hijab and Islamic dress and not cover their faces. This does not mean that the Saudi woman will relinquish her purity or virtuousness.

Men, take care of your own virtuousness before you sentence women to life imprisonment and deny them their rights. Be decent before you order us to wear hijab, because the coming age is ours.

Open all the roads to us and wait. We are coming, and we are armed with knowledge, faith, and virtue, and we are wearing our Islamic hijab without the niqab.

Independent Saudi Journalist and Writer.