Hell has frozen over. Katliamom has agreed with several posts by Pizzagirl.
And BTW, no one on this thread is claiming that the West is a paragon of virtue where the treatment of women in concerned. But you’d have to have had a lobotomy* to think that women in Saudi Arabia are treated with “respect.”
*Or be a clueless male. Which is basically the same thing.
I was fortunate to never be groped in Saudi Arabia (or maybe the men were fortunate they didn’t try!) :D, but I got my “welcome” to the country before I even landed. When I would make a required radio call to their air traffic controllers, they would ignore me. Then I would call again. No answer. So I would have the other pilot (male) call the controller. Immediate answer. I had to do that repetitively, every time I flew into Saudi Arabia. One time the other pilot was a woman, so I had the flight engineer (male, not someone who normally talks on the radio), make the call. Immediate answer. It was really insulting, and unprofessional. Pretty unsafe to ignore pilots in their airspace, too.
I finally got so irritated with this, that when I made the radio call, I would force myself to sound very angry. That was against my basic nature, but it worked every time. I really don’t like being rude. 
I was devastated that I was forced to leave my young infant with a babysitter, while me and my husband were required to go to the Middle East. But when the Iraqis started amassing on the border with Saudi Arabia, we were sent over there to help the Saudis. It was very frustrating that this was how they showed appreciation to their ally, and showed us their version of “respect” towards women.
I interviewed women who - when they wanted to go buy typical household goods - had to wait for their husbands. The husband would drive, get out of the car and do the marketing because a proper woman shouldn’t be seen. If he forgot her favorite brand of toothpaste or shampoo, he’d come back to the car and ask her. Yeah, so progressive.
"I actually lived in Saudi Arabia for five years. …I never felt threatened there nor at risk for anything that I don’t fear here. I never felt dehumanized. Quite the contrary. Although I could not work there or drive a car, I felt no desire to do so. "
Just because you personally have no desire to do something doesn’t make it not oppressive for it to be prohibited. If women were to be prohibited from, say, entering medical school, that’s oppressive to me as a woman even though I have no desire to be a doctor. It’s a limitation on my freedom.
I cannot believe you actually lived in a country where women don’t have the freedom to WALK OUTSIDE without their guardian’s permission, and still don’t get it.
The beautiful diving off the Red Sea? Only men can do it - women can’t appear in public in the kind of clothing required. The restaurants? Two married couples who are unrelated can’t go out to eat.
I think you got a little confused between life in an expat compound where western norms still prevailed and life in KSA.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but this isn’t true. At least, not in most areas.
It was where I was, and I was in a relatively liberal part of KSA (Jeddah). It’s practically the Berkeley of Saudi Arabia, lol. And the fact that there is even ONE area where unrelated couples can’t dine is ridiculous. You can’t argue that there isn’t significant sex segregation.
I’ve never lived in a a middle eastern or northern African country, but I grew up in the rural South, amd I was a woman in the corporate world from the early 1970s. Speaking only from my own experience, I will say that people acting as if they respect you is not the same as actually respecting you.
But there is some good news for Saudi women - they have just gotten the right to vote and hold office! 130,000 women registered to vote in the last election and 18 were actually elected to municipal councils. This is a good start and hopefully will lead to some reforms - although I suspect women rights in Saudi Arabia will move at glacial speed.
The Women2Drive campaign started a few years back by the few young women brave enough to ignore the law has not really gotten too much traction. They were all “pardoned” for getting behind the wheel but the authorities have kept the threat of future proceedings hanging over their heads to discourage any future violations. Although there has been some recent reports of proposed changes that would allow women to drive for the purposes of getting their children to school or to a hospital.
“I’ve never lived in a a middle eastern or northern African country, but I grew up in the rural South, amd I was a woman in the corporate world from the early 1970s. Speaking only from my own experience, I will say that people acting as if they respect you is not the same as actually respecting you.”
Even in the most godforsaken, Deliverance-bound areas of the rural south, women still have the freedom to: a) wear whatever they like, b) walk around in public whenever and wherever they want, c) drive whenever and wherever they want, d) own property and sign contracts, e) hold jobs, and f) run for public office and vote. There are no laws prohibiting them from doing these things. Honestly, I am so tired of trying to answer what are clear human rights violations with “well, other areas aren’t perfect either.”
It’s like countering “the Nazis threw Jews in concentration camps” with “well, the WASPs in New York didn’t let Jews into their country clubs, either, so there, see, nobody’s perfect.” It’s just an inapt comparison between the role of women in the US and the role of women in KSA.
@HarvestMoon1 - I wonder about the driving thing and the pardons - how do women even learn to drive in Saudi Arabia? As a mom of teens, I see how much practice is involved, and I’m not seeing how these girls/women will be able to drive if they’re prevented from learning…
But @Pizzagirl , those Nazis had such great fashion sense!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WCUfkMkVbwo
“I wonder about the driving thing and the pardons - how do women even learn to drive in Saudi Arabia? As a mom of teens, I see how much practice is involved, and I’m not seeing how these girls/women will be able to drive if they’re prevented from learning…”
They don’t learn to drive. I don’t think some of you are understanding. Women in Saudi Arabia don’t have the freedoms we take for granted. Even in repressive regimes like China and Russia, for heaven’s sake, women can still walk outside, go to restaurants, go buy things, etc.
Here’s an article that explains it: http://www.theweek.co.uk/60339/eleven-things-women-in-saudi-arabia-cant-do
^^^^
The linked video is “blocked in your country.” Which I assume means the U.S.
Try this link instead
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmYIo7bcUw
Women simply aren’t PRESENT in public life in Saudi Arabia. I would say 95% of the people that I saw out and about were men. It’s really jarring. When I went to a restaurant with male co-workers, I was kind of grandfathered-in since I was clearly a visitor, and they put up screens around me so the other male diners wouldn’t see me. I was the only woman in the restaurant. Most public facilities have separate entrances for men and women, and it’s rare to have a women’s restroom because what are the wimmenfolk doing outside the home, anyway. Yes, women have drivers - expats, or rich women with nice husbands. Rich women with not-nice husbands are out of luck.
This is why I find it unbelievable that someone is actually trying to argue any kind of equivalency between KSA and the US in terms of treatment of women.
@VeryHappy --I believe based on what I remember of @romanigypsyeyes its intimate partner violence
^ Yes, intimate partner violence. Sorry 
@fretfulmother - Not really sure how they learn as they cannot be issued a license. My understanding is that many women, especially those from rural areas, do know how to drive and do in fact drive because their family’s survival depends on it. Those areas are also not really patrolled and thus the ban (which is a religious one not a legal one) is not enforced.
And like everything in the Kingdom a lot depends on who you are and what your status is in their society. I was an expat in London for 3 years and met many Saudi women. Some of them said they knew how to drive and it seemed to be a point of pride for them. But none of us kept cars in London, so who knows if they really did know how or were just saying so to appear contemporary.
Literally every Saudi woman I ever met there lived in Mayfair - the most expensive part of London. The expats from the U.S. all lived in Kensington which was also extremely nice. The Saudi’s were very “clannish” but the younger women did try to socialize and seemed drawn to American women. I remember being invited to a lunch at one of their homes along with a group of other women. Saudi women live extraordinarily well but in my view pay a very high price for it. The hostess had a gold bell next to her place at the table. Whenever she or anyone else needed something - more tea or a refill of water - she would ring the bell and the server would come out of the kitchen to attend to things. Most of us were professional women from the U.S. and we were kind of appalled by the whole thing. Later we all agreed the bell was treating the housekeeper like a dog. Very different culture.
Pizzagirl, I think you missed my point pretty thoroughly in your #48 response to my #46. First, when I mentioned the South of the 50s, I wasn’t referring to women but to blacks. Second, nowhere in my post did I say, imply, or come close to even addressing anything to do with indicating that KSA isn’t egregious because other places aren’t perfect either. I was responding to another poster’s comments about being treated with respect in KSA.