But the response on Tuesday was not what she and her aides expected.
According to the NY Times article, the audience was carefully selected, and the women came from the ‘liberal’ elite of Saudi Arabia. Karen arrived with the usual Western presuppositions. She assumed that the women are unhappy with their station in life where they are forced to wear abayas, and cannot vote or drive. It’s not an unreasonable assumption. I doubt any of our female members would stand for such a the lack of rights. But Karen was quickly put on the defensive.
“I love my abaya,” she explained. “It’s convenient and it can be very fashionable.”
I’ve know several women that went to Catholic school and had to wear uniforms, and they have mentioned the convenience of not having to pick out an outfit or compete with other girls. So, I can understand the convenience of wearing the abaya. But, they will have to work on me to get me to see the fashion possibilities. As for other advantages, Muslim women most often refer to the increased respect they are treated with when men do not (cannot) see them as sex objects. I can see the truth in their outlook, but I have a lot of trouble seeing it as a good trade-off.
The women also surprised Mrs. Hughes by shrugging off the restrictions on voting and driving.
:::flip:::
“The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn’t happy,” one audience member said. “Well, we’re all pretty happy.” The room, full of students, faculty members and some professionals, resounded with applause…
…”There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country,” said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital.
“I don’t want to drive a car,” she said. “I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver’s license?”
“Women have more than equal rights,” added her daughter, Dr. Fouzia Pasha, also an obstetrician and gynecologist, asserting that men have obligations accompanying their rights, and that women can go to court to hold them accountable.
I have trouble with Dr. Kamal’s logic that her advanced degree somehow has any relationship to her right to drive. Her daughter’s logic is even more confounding. How exactly do Saudi women have equal rights, let alone more than equal rights?
To me, the happy picture the House of Saud painted for Karen Hughes disguises a lot of unhappiness that is roiling the country. The elite and privileged students and professionals of Jiddah are probably pretty satisfied with their lot. But the Kingdom is suffering from high unemployment, a plummeting standard of living, and its own deadly insurgency. There is nothing approaching social justice in the Kingdom, and that is a bigger problem than issues of political, civil, and women’s rights.
It’s probably a good thing for Karen Hughes to go to Saudi Arabia and try to open a dialogue. But neither she, nor the Saudis are fooling anyone with this happy talk. Our buddy-buddy relationship and dependence on the House of Saud is our number one national security threat. It’s also our number one economic threat. Political liberalization in the country is an important goal in reducing these threats, but it isn’t a solution. As long as the House of Saud remains so corrupt, lives so ostentatiously, and fails to provide jobs and opportunities for its people, it will be too dangerous for them to allow free speech or free elections.
If we want to continue to have a close relationship with the Saudis we should talk a little less about rights, and a lot more about how to create new jobs and diversify their economy. As Iraq shows us, rights are not worth much in the middle of a civil war. If we must suffer the House of Saud, we shouldn’t ask them to offer rights they don’t have the legitimacy to confer. We should help them to be more benevolent despots.
It is a sad recommendation for me to make, because I believe the Arabian people deserve to be free of the Saudi monarchy, and I believe Human Rights are universal. I don’t like subsidizing the oppression of any human beings. But we don’t have much choice right now. I’d like for us to become energy independent enough that we can let the House of Saud fall without concern for the world economy. We should start on the goal immediately.
It has nothing at all to do with these women liking or not liking their abayas.
Bush may hold hands with the King of Saudi Arabia but the majority of Saudis hate Americans even these elite “libruls”… (hence the majority of 9/11 terrorist were Saudis)… even though the MSM has brainwashed Americans into thinking that they were Iraqis.
These women are educated, proud and rich… they were not going to let this uneducated Texas bumpkin condescend to them…
What Westerners also fail to recognize is that the abayas and the shadors have become parallel signs of rebellion against the west. In the sixties many Muslem women where wearing mini skirts it was the interventions from the west that put women back into the shadors NOT the islamic extremist… unfortunately they then turned these womens voluntary acts of protest into islamic law… and now like in Iraq liberation from the West is synonomous with covered women it is a symbol of their “Freedom”.
No self respecting Arab women would sit in that audience and agree with this silly woman… of course they are going to embrace their culture over this fool. And this is exactly how Westerners have fed the Islamic extremist in these countries… by imposing their own set of beliefs on another culture.
Let me clairify:
In the sixties many Muslem women where wearing mini skirts it was the interventions from the west that put women back into the shadors NOT the islamic extremist… NOT in Saudi Arabia… but in Iraq, Algeria, Morroco, Iran, Egypt …all these countries who had “Western interventions”… then in all of these countries came a backlash against the west.
While I understand, and to a certain extent agree with much of what you say here, I do not believe it’s accurate to claim that the majority of Saudis hate Americans.
Certainly there’s tremendous animosity toward the US from many quarters around the world, and Saudi Arabia is no exception. But the vast majority of earthlings basically distrust the US government and recognize current US policy as dangerous and threatening to the broader world at large. And distrust of the US govt. is not the same as hatred of the American people.
There is a lot of hate in the world, but to say the majority of Saudis hate Americans is, IMHO, a misreading of the reality.
They flew into buildings of civilians not the White House
Bin Laden’s 19 murderous henchmen no more represent the broad sentiments of Saudis than James dobson or Jerry Falwell represent the views of the majority of Americans.
Using your argument, one could say that since Cheney orchestrated the attack on Iraq, this means that Americans hate Iraqis. I find such an argument to be at the least misleading in it’s over-simplification.
No the majority hate Americans
There may have been some pride involved.
But there’s also a lot of underlying fear that propelled those women to speak out for their currently restricted lifestyle.
I’m trying to remember what happened to the Saudi women who conducted that very benign, even amusing demonstration of driving cars … but it wasn’t good. And their demonstration was for naught.
These women have to condone the “party line” publicly or suffer severe consequences.
Probably foremost in the professional women’s minds was that they want to KEEP their positions as professionals, and will put up with the restrictions just to keep that much of their lives open to opportunity.
who, if asked by a representative of the Saudi government, how they felt about living in a society that obliged them to put themselves on public display every time they left their homes for any reason, or how they felt about their ability to conform to a particular standard of physical and sexual attractiveness being such a major determinant in their lives. Do you not, might the representative ask, feel it unfair that in order to be considered to have a “professional” appearance, you must wear painful, crippling shoes whose sole purpose is to render your publicly displayed legs more sexually alluring to those who will determine your salary?
There would surely be women there who would insist, out of fear, that they do not mind any of these things, that they do not at all resent the money they have paid to cosmetic companies, to hair stylists and vendors of “diet aids,” because all this they do for themselves, because it is their choice, and their freedom, and their joy.
There would be many who would insist that they do not purchase creams or wear uncomfortable constrictive clothing designed to display their bosoms and derrieres for fear that a woman seen as more attractive might get the promotion, or the job, or that their husbands might discard them as they age for a younger more alluring partner, thus plunging them and their children into poverty, but they would only say such things because they fear losing the privilege of occasionally going out in loose clothing, unstyled hair and flat shoes when they jog, or do certain errands.
Every man is convinced that his country has the most beautiful women, and his culture the superior method of oppressing them. 😉
I see what you mean… but this woman is such an idiot… that I don’t think under any circumstances these woman would not have lowered themselves to agreed with her. They hand picked “LIBERALS” to agree with her…you know like the ones they demonize in the US.
But we don’t have much choice right now. I’d like for us to become energy independent enough that we can let the House of Saud fall without concern for the world economy. We should start on the goal immediately.
The problem with this plan is that the sole ineffectual balance to theocratic rule by Wahabbi Immans in SA is the House of Saud. And the Wahabbi sect knows how to run a proper theocracy.
The women of SA are, legally speaking, chattel. Hughes is meeting with the best fed and cared for chattel but, believe me, none of these women are going to do anything but defend the current regime and particularly from a member of the Bush cabal.
Karen Hughes cannot even imagine or speak effectively to most of the women in this country; why does anyone feel she will be able to speak to women anywhere else.
And may I add that SA is a destination country for human trafficking (which translates to various forms of slavery) and that the Bush administration just granted them a waiver.
and following the logic of your argument, the current regime is better for women than the likely alternative would be.
So, what do we stand for? Universal human rights or self-determination? Ultimately, we stand for the free and stable supply of oil and gas, which fuels the world economy and does more than anything else to raise standards of living.
It’s a very complicated and unfortunate situation.
and following the logic of your argument, the current regime is better for women than the likely alternative would be.
That actually wasn’t my argument. In the current situation the rights of women are dictated by Wahabi Islamists anyway. Recall the recent example of the girl’s school which burned down with the students inside because it would be immodest for them to be evacuated sans habib. It was the Imans who dictated that, the ruling family actually spoke out against the results.
What I’m saying is that SA is at the moment a functional theocracy with the House of Saud barely hanging on.
What I’m saying is that the problem isn’t the House of Saud, it’s the religion. I am by no means defending the Saudi ruling family, I’m relating what I’ve learned from reading books and from participation on an international listserv for Muslim feminists and those concerned with the status of women under Islam which I read for the insight it provides.
Believe me, these aren’t people who wish to have the west in general or the Bush administration and/or Americans solve their problems.
Clueless! Clueless, clueless, clueless!
Surrealism is not dead. It has its own office at the State Department.
Pat Lang posted about this too, with the title, “Karen Hughes: Texas Missionary”:
The biggest mistake I see that Karen Hughes made – and other American envoys have made the same error, countless times – is that she went to this presentation absolutely confident that she already knew what these women really wanted out of their lives. And so, even with a hand-picked audience of women from the educated elite, she ran headlong into the culture wall.
Faiza reported perceiving much the same attitude in a seminar she attended for Iraqi professional women (which for safety’s sake was not actually held in Iraq). The American presenters were there to tell these women – educated, professional women from a country that was, until the US invaded, the most secular Arab nation, with the most freedom for women to work outside their homes and dress as they pleased – how to live under a democracy. She, and the other Iraqi women who attended, were less than impressed by the lecturers’ narrow cultural perspective:
And after a lecture that extolled the virtues of the “free economy” — meaning the wealth of Iraq’s oil should belong to private companies, not be nationalized and managed by the government — she and other women in the room started to talk back, arguing with the speakers, only to be told that the time for discussion and questions was now over:
I would not want to live in the Saudi culture – which seems to me to be extremely restrictive and repressive – but it would be sheer cultural arrogance to assume that just because I feel that way, that women who grew up in that culture would see mine as any improvement.
It apparently never occurred to Karen Hughes to let them ask the questions before she gave them the answers. She went to talk, not to listen. She went to sell the American brand, not to facilitate dialogue and develop relationships. It never occurred to her that being able to vote or drive a car might not be what her audience considered their highest priority.
But then, this is the administration that thinks it’s “very American” to be working three jobs to make ends meet. This is the administration that handpicks its audiences even in its OWN country, so as to avoid any and all dissenting voices, any possible clash of cultures. This administration is out of touch with its OWN people – how can it hope to reach out to another culture entirely?
.
From NYT article —
A woman in the audience then charged that under President Bush the United States had become “a right wing country” and that criticism by the press was not allowed. “I have to say I sometimes wish that was the case, but it’s not,” Ms. Hughes said with a laugh.
Several women said Americans failed to understand that their traditional society was embraced by men and women alike. “There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country,” said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital. “I don’t want to drive a car,” she said. “I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver’s license?”
“Women have more than equal rights,” added her daughter, Dr. Fouzia Pasha, also an obstetrician and gynecologist, asserting that men have obligations accompanying their rights, and that women can go to court to hold them accountable.
Ms. Hughes appeared to have left a favorable impression. “She’s open to people’s opinions,” said Nour al-Sabbagh, a 21-year-old student in special education. “She’s trying to understand.”
As it was ending Ms. Hughes, a long time communications aide to President Bush, assured the women that she was impressed with what they had said and that she would take their message home. “I would be glad to go back to the United States and talk about the Arab women I’ve met,” she said.
King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre
▼ ▼ ▼ MY NEW DIARY
by lying to us about Bush and his policies.
She should mind her own business. Let the women of each nation decide what’s best for them.
How much did her trip cost?