The academic year is starting and it is so dreadful dragging the driver around. Tell me what should I do when I have a class that’s 90 minutes long and it takes a 30 minute drive to get there; it’s terrible to make the driver wait outside in the heat and I have to rush [...]
Posts Tagged as ‘Women in Saudi’
September 17, 2009
A word not unlike nigger
As a student of linguistics I know the immense weight that language carries beyond just a means of communication. And nothing reflects that in Saudi Arabia as does the use of the word hurma (singular) and hareem (plural) to refer to women. Before the ultra-conservative fundamentalist direction that many people of the GCC countries have [...]
September 3, 2009
“My Guardian Knows What’s Best for Me”
In August a campaign was launched titled “My Guardian Knows What’s Best for Me”. The aim of the campaign is to stand against women who are demanding to be treated as adults. Yes you read it right, a campaign that demands that the status qou remains as is. The campaign is headed by two princesses and has [...]
August 26, 2009
Another child bride
There is nothing that gets the Saudi government to act like shining the western media spotlight on it. Once the spotlight dims, things usually go back to the way they were. A while back there was all this attention about who I call the child bride of Onaiza, and accordingly the marriage never took place [...]
July 1, 2009
Love in KSA
Yesterday Riyadh Newspaper carried a story about a couple. Their relationship ended horribly when the guy blackmailed the girl into meeting him on a secluded roof. Only she came with a bottle of acid. She agreed that he would be there first waiting for her and when she got there he had already gotten down [...]
May 16, 2009
Are you a muttawa?
Katie Couric from CBS News stops a Saudi man on the street and asks him if he is a muttawa. I found that really funny. You don’t ask a religious fanatic if he is a religious fanatic. The way that she stood there and with a matter of fact attitude claimed [...]
May 2, 2009
14,300 applications per day
On April 23rd newspapers reported that 100,000 applicants applied within one week of first announcing vacancies in women government jobs. While a month before it took three weeks to get 50,000 applicants for men government jobs. And the report quietly disappeared without much fuss about its implications and the hopelessness that Saudi women are going [...]
April 26, 2009
I am not a bolger!
I’m a blogger. This is what was written in Arab News today, the leading Saudi English paper in an article about women’s sports clubs here. Another thing that I’m not is a social worker. I’m a lecturer. I teach English as a foreign language and for specific academic purposes. But what I was really disappointed [...]
April 12, 2009
The child bride of Onaiza
This story has drawn a lot of press. The girl is from Onaiza which is a part of Qaseem, a central region north of Riyadh. It’s the same place that produced Sheikh Bin Othaimeen and it’s most known for how fanatic and social the people there are about religion. And how the women of families [...]
April 7, 2009
Divorce in Saudi Arabia
No matter how many reports you read about the rise in numbers of divorce cases in Saudi Arabia, it still remains a dirty word that Saudis are taught not to even contemplate. For my generation and those younger, there is a growing number who rebel. But for older couples it is still very true. No [...]
