Oil crisis lifts the veil on women’s role in Saudi Arabia
By : Belinda Parmar,
"I want my
daughter to be internationally successful, I want her to be whatever she wants,
if she chooses to be a doctor or an artist. And I want people to respect
her."
These words were spoken by Mohammad, a middle-aged
Saudi-Arabian partner of a major global management consultancy at a panel
debate I recently attended in Riyadh.
Image:
REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser
A Saudi woman leaves a polling station
after casting her vote during municipal elections, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in
December 2015
I found his ambitions for his daughter easy to
identify with. They parallel my feelings about the freedoms and rights I expect
for my own 8-year-daughter. Rights and freedoms that will give her the power
and confidence to be whatever she wants to be.
Corporate Saudi
Arabia, a world apart
This is a country where women only make up 16% of the Saudi workforce, standing much in
line with the 14% of the UAE and 19% in Bahrain, and yet I also witnessed a
corporate Saudi Arabia which is very much a world apart. Here I encountered
business “compounds” - privately-owned towns built to house the employees of
multinational companies.
The largest of these compounds are as big as small
cities. Within the walls of the compound of Saudi Aramco, the oil giant that is
estimated to be the world’s most valuable company, I saw women and men behaving
freely, much as they do in other more liberal Arab nations. Women do not have
to wear the Abaya (black robe), which is obligatory on the streets of most
major Saudi cities. There’s also an (unwritten) understanding that the Muttawa
(religious police) do not attempt to enforce gender segregation or dress codes
on private property.
The blossoming of a
female subculture
During my time in Saudi, I witnessed the early
blossoming of a female subculture. Women who might still be subject to harsh
rules of “guardianship” are finding ways to communicate with each other via
social networks. And, whether they are inspired by fine-art sculpture or video game vlogging, things are changing
faster than one might expect. In just one generation the country has moved from
5% to almost 100% literacy. A staggering 70% of the population is under 30
years old, meaning a more youthful and less traditional perspective is
possible. Women may still be barred from participation in most mainstream
cultural establishments, but they are no longer silent. In 2015 women voted for
the first time in the municipal councils. 55% of the graduates from Saudi
universities are now women. Female employment is one of the top priorities of
the governmental agenda.
Speaking at this year’s Munich Security conference, the
Saudi-Arabian foreign minister assured that women would soon be able to drive,
and that the prohibition was a societal rather than religious issue. While this
proposal came with no specific schedule, one cannot help feeling that the
Kingdom’s government is increasingly aware of just how untenable women’s
current situation of rights deprivation has become. In other words - change is
inevitable and it has already begun.
The moral argument -
and the economic one
Many have argued for women’s equality on purely
moral terms, and those are valid arguments. But they aren’t the only ones.
There is also corporate and national profitability to be considered, and for
many who reject “western morality”, a purely financial argument may prove more
compelling.
At this year’s Davos, Klaus Schwab, the founder of
the World Economic Forum, argued that we are entering an era in which
competition for “human capital” will become more significant than competition
for financial capital. Ironically, only 18% of participation was female at
Davos this year, despite the Forum’s own efforts to boost this number. But the
question remains, how can a country deprived of 55% of its workforce compete
with nations that are more than happy to pool all of their human resources?
International corporations are a vector for
international values. The volatility of the oil markets means that the country
can no longer rely on its primary industry as a reliable source of wealth.
Soon, Saudi Arabia will have to play by the same rules as other industrialized
countries: it will need to diversify and take its place in the economy of human
capital. This New York Times article states
that “low oil prices have knocked a chunk out of the government budget and now
pose a threat to the unwritten social contract that has long underpinned life
in the kingdom”.
But as I look over Mohammad’s shoulder and scan the
room, there are no women. The panel of corporate pundits consists exclusively
of men. Whilst I did see women on other panels, if Saudi Arabia is to pool its
resources of female talent then it needs women to be represented in the
boardroom to get their voices heard. And, more than ever, it needs the private
sector to lead this shift.
Saudi Arabia’s future is poised on a fine balance.
There may have been no female pundits on Mohammad’s panel, but the men I spoke
to did at least admit their openness to address the issue of women’s rights and
their importance to the future economy of the country - one that needs to
compete with other Arab countries such as Bahrain and Dubai. And this is a
pressing need. The lowering of oil prices should serve as a resounding clarion
call for a nation that needs to plan for a near-future in which oil-wells are
drying up. It is time to drill into a far richer well, that of talented, modern
women. Women like Mohammad’s daughter. A well that need never run dry.
Belinda
Parmar, CEO and Author,
Lady Geek. Belinda Parmar is the founder of Little Miss Geek and CEO of Lady
Geek, a campaigning agency which aims to make technology more appealing and
accessible to women. She has written for Wired, Glamour, The Times. She also
has a column in the Huffington Post. Parmar is the author of book The
Empathy Era and Young Global Leader at World Economic Forum.
Post a Comment