From the Economist, we learn:
FOR decades Saudi Arabia’s religious police have enforced a rigid separation of the sexes in public places. Plain-clothes agents of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the religious police are known, patrol streets, parks and shopping centres, intervening to scold offenders, strike them with switches or haul them off to be disciplined by ordinary police. At last year’s annual book fair in Riyadh, the capital, they arrested two male visitors for the crime of ikhtilat, or “mixing”, after they asked a female novelist to sign her book. Other cases have ended more tragically, with the death of suspected lovers during high-speed car chases.
Such restrictions continue to amaze me. I wonder at all the Suadi authors and readers that are unable to connect to these archaic laws- their publishing industry must be suffering considerably. This whole incident makes me more curious about how Saudi libraries operate. I wonder if libraries in the country are equally restrictive? In any event, the country’s natural resources will run out at some point. Perhaps then the economic fallout from lack of women’s education will make itself felt. A modern society simply cannot be free and prosperous when half the population is denied education, mobility and other opportunities.
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I believe that there are plenty of educational opportunities for Saudi women – they just traditionally have to attend all female schools and universities. I think the first co-ed university opened there recently amidst some controversy.
As for the libraries, I’m not sure how that would work but I assume there are separate hours for men and women to prevent such scandalous activities as mixed gender book clubs!
Thanks for pointing out some points that I overlooked. Based on what I know of the country, it looks like Saudi Arabia has reached the same place that Canada/UK/US reached around 1890-1900, perhaps a little bit further.
Wikipedia (I know, I know not an ideal source but it is footnoted) supports my contention that Saudi Arabia is effectively wasting the skills and abilities of its women economically speaking. “Although they make up 70% of those enrolled in universities, women make up just 7% of the workforce in Saudi Arabia…”
On a more philosophical note, I am very skeptical of any social system premised on a notion of “seperate but equal.” Such a view is more often a cloak for oppression and/or mistreatment than anything else.