(ii) The experience of a woman and the status of women

Carmen's experience as a woman living in Saudi Arabia began the moment she landed in that country:

I was so fixated on keeping the veil in place, I couldn't pay attention to anything else. I caught sight of Yeslam's brother Ibrahim, with his crinkly eyes and friendly face. I loudly called, "Hi, lbrahim". I was so relieved, to see some­one familiar--but he said nothing. He looked almost em­barrassed. Then, very softly, he said "Hi." I had forgotten, although Yeslam had warned me: I was not permitted to speak to any man in public. [p.33]

In Saudi culture, any man who might one day become your husband is not supposed to see you unveiled. The only men who may look at a woman's face are her father, her brothers, her husband, her stepfather. [p. 71]

Almost immediately upon her arrival, Carmen Bin Laden learnt that Saudi Women's fate is to be locked up in their homes most of the time:

Only the men could come and go as they pleased. We women were confined to the house--not only because of the sweltering summer heat, but because we could not be seen unveiled by men outside the family.

Even to go into the garden we had to notify the male employees to vacate the premises. Once the coast was clear, we would step out, usually at dusk, into a furnace. The sand of the desert around us was blinding--like staring at Alpine snow without sunglasses. In this way my freewheeling universe had shrunk to one and a half acres of baking garden planted with a few spindly trees. [p.36-7]

We were not permitted to pray in a public space--we were women. In Saudi Arabia women are forbidden even to step into a mosque, and can only pray in a public space with the ritual prayer that is required in the holy cites of Mecca and Medina. [p. 41]

Together with the oppression of women comes the religious layer of instilling guilt and removing any shred of pleasure from daily life. We will discuss this topic in greater detail in Part 3, but for the moment suffice it to note how ingrained the rejection of pleasure is in Saudi mores, especially in connection with the treatment of women:

The Arabic word for woman, hormah, derives from the word haram: sin. [p. 56]

It was, of course, almost always haram and abe [shame - Ed.] for a Bin Laden woman to leave the house. Our faces could never be seen by a man outside the family. If we left the house, it was to be driven somewhere specific, by a man. It was months before I even understood the layout of the neighborhood. [p. 57]

Carmen observed the implications of the treatment of women vis-a-vis education:

Fawzia [a family member - Ed.] attended classes at the university--she was studying business-but it was not like any university I had ever imagined. Her "classes" were in reality video presentations by male professors who could not be permitted to teach directly in a strictly segregated, women-only classroom. There was a li­brary, but women students had to apply for books in writ­ing, and received them from a office reserved for that purpose a week later. I never saw Fawzia read a book, or heard her talk about her studies. [p. 60]

I never once saw one of my sisters in-law pick up a book. These women never met with men other than their husbands, and never talked about larger issues even with the men they had married. They had nothing to say. [p. 77]

To this day, there is no legal obligation to educate girls in Saudi Arabia. Many Saudi men do not send their daugh­ters to school, and very few of them feel it is important. Even education for boys is a relatively new development: Until World War II, there were only traditional schools, teaching Arabic, a little Islamic history, and the Koran. But in the early 196os, Princess Iffat, the wife of King Faisal, faced down tremendous opposition from Islamic leaders and set up Saudi Arabia's first girls school, Dar el Hanan. This was where Yeslam proposed we send Wafah, aged six, and little four-year-old Najia [two of Carmen’s daughters].

I knew it would be hard for them, but I had no choice. Saudi children were not allowed to go to the foreigners' schools. [p. 139]

The discrimination and oppression of women is enshrined in law and has a pervasive effect:

I rarely met a Saudi woman who was not afraid of her husband... Women in Saudi Arabia must live in obedience, in isolation, and in the fear that they may be cast out and summarily divorced. [p. 67]

Longing for a boy [to be born] was not just a whim that occupied me in those last weeks of pregnancy. For Saudi women, it is es­sential to produce male heirs. It is not just a question of your personal status in society (though for many women that is part of the issue--to be called Om Ali, for example, sounds a lot better than plain Om Sarah. It can be a question of ba­sic survival. [p. 82]

In the event of a husband's death, if his wife has only daughters, then the wife and girl children--even if they are adult --become dependent on the husband's closest male relative. He is their guardian, and must approve even basic decisions, such as travel, or education, or the choice of a husband. Even in terms of inheritance, a family with only women is discriminated against. When the husband dies, if he leaves only daughters, then 50 percent of his inheri­tance reverts to his parents and siblings. The wife and chil­dren receive just half his estate.

Only if the wife has sons does the entire estate pass to her and her children. And, once he is an adult, the oldest son can act as guardian to his mother and sisters. [p. 83]

Unless I had a son, I would need a brother-in-law's ap­proval to leave the country, or even Jeddah. Wafah and Najia [Carmen’s two daughters] could be denied an education, or married to a person of their guardian's choosing, without any input from me. Men like Osama could one day rule over me and my children. There would be nothing whatsoever that I could do about it. [p. 87]

I have seen too many women lose everything, even the right to see their children, and who were forced to submit to the rule of their husbands, because they simply had no other choice. And I have seen men torn between their am­bition and desires, and their training for self-denial and obedience to their society's traditions. [p. 203]

The discrimination against women, Carmen shows, could also have comic aspects:

I once found Yeslam's Yemeni driver parked inside our compound, in front of our house, with the motor running. Even from a distance of a few meters I could feel the heat coming off the engine and I could smell it burning. I said, "Turn off the engine, it's going to overheat." But Yeslam's driver ignored me. "I have to keep the air-conditioning on for Sheikh Yeslam," he said. When I insisted, he added, "I don't take orders from women." [p. 98-99]

This is the face of Saudi Arabia, a member of the UN Human Rights Commission, the job of which is to malign Israel systematically. No doubt, Saudi Arabia and the Commission deserve each other.