Saudi businesswomen stop fighting the system and create a women-only city

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Saudi Arabia is a society totally controlled by males.

Map of the territory and area covered by prese...

Map of the territory and area covered by present-day Saudi Arabia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Many Saudi women wear the burka and, despite their earning 60% of the country’s college degrees, including PhDs, females constitute only 15% of the workforce. They can’t marry, divorce or travel without permission from a man. Segregating the sexes in workplaces is a long-honored tradition in Saudi Arabia, according to an article in Autostraddle.

Now a group of businesswomen have decided to create their own, all-female Saudi city. Hofuf is the first of five planned cities where women will be able to pursue careers, living, working and socializing in a more open environment.

It’s a good article—objectively covers a lot of pros and cons about this revolutionary concept. I have to say that, coming from a family where males were automatically considered superior, my experience attending an all-girls high school was my first opportunity to test my skills and talents without the gender imbalance working against me. I gained a great deal from being able to do that at an important stage of my life.

I can’t imagine living with the restrictions Saudi women are up against. But I also can’t think there’s anything negative about creating their own forum for exercising their brains, skills and talents. As for the faulty idea of separate but equal that didn’t work so well for race, I think it doesn’t apply here. As one commenter said, the only thing these women might have to worry about is backlash from some Saudi men who will be threatened if the women succeed “too well.”

And even though it doesn’t say so, I’m going to bet that a big portion of the energy for this idea and its execution comes from college-degreed single working women—who might have to stand up to only their resistant fathers and brothers rather than to both them and husbands!

Congratulations, ladies. Looking forward to hearing about many good things ahead.

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