A recent move to introduce physical education to government girls’ schools met
the same response as most attempts to give Saudi women equal rights with
men.
A group of conservatives protested in Riyadh, the capital, against “Westernising” moves that would lead to adultery and prostitution. Such mores, they argued, have no place in the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.
Slowly the tide in Saudi Arabia appears to be running in women’s favour. “The Saudi woman’s voice has always been there calling for change,” says Hatoon al-Fassi, a prominent Saudi historian of women in Arabia.
“But today it is more apparent and it is getting to the decision-makers.” Though lambasting the lack of equality between the sexes in the kingdom, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby group, last year referred to “encouraging, modest” reforms for women.
Read more: Women in Saudi Arabia: Unshackling themselves | The Economist
A group of conservatives protested in Riyadh, the capital, against “Westernising” moves that would lead to adultery and prostitution. Such mores, they argued, have no place in the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.
Slowly the tide in Saudi Arabia appears to be running in women’s favour. “The Saudi woman’s voice has always been there calling for change,” says Hatoon al-Fassi, a prominent Saudi historian of women in Arabia.
“But today it is more apparent and it is getting to the decision-makers.” Though lambasting the lack of equality between the sexes in the kingdom, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based lobby group, last year referred to “encouraging, modest” reforms for women.
Read more: Women in Saudi Arabia: Unshackling themselves | The Economist
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