Conservative Saudi women fight to keep male guardianship (Feature)

By Anne-Beatrice Clasmann Oct 5, 2010, 3:06 GMT

Riyadh/Istanbul - Women fighting for equal rights are common in every country on the globe.

But Saudi Arabia also has a women's movement fighting to preserve inequality with men. Called 'My Guardian Knows Best for Me,' it seeks retention of the Gulf kingdom's male guardianship system.

Launched last year by Jeddah resident Rawdah Al-Yousif, the movement has several thousand members and its own website (www.waluamree.com). It propagates its ideas in places including the social networking website Facebook.

'I find it regrettable that a minority of women advocate so-called women's liberation, which doesn't comply with Islamic law (Shariah) or traditional Arab values,' said Al-Yousif, whose grandfather emigrated to Saudi Arabia from Somalia.

Females are not allowed to vote or drive in Saudi Arabia, which enforces an unusually strict form of Sunni Islam as the official state religion.

To attend university or marry, they need permission from their male guardian - their father, if they are unmarried girls or women. When a woman marries, her husband becomes her guardian.

If the father of an unmarried girl or woman is dead, a brother or an uncle assumes the role. Replacing a guardian is possible only in rare circumstances. For example, a woman can try to substitute a brother for her father if the latter forbids her from marrying out of self-interest.

The male guardian also decides whether a woman may work. If she wants to travel, she must ask him for permission, unless she is over 45.

A woman who talks nineteen to the dozen and constantly has new plans, Al-Yousif wants to present a television show about family problems and make a documentary film in the near future.

One of the supporters of her campaign is a female member of the Saudi royal family, Princess Ghada bint Abdullah bin Jalawi Al-Saud.

Al-Yousif's campaign is a reaction to efforts by a small group of Saudi feminists to have the male guardianship system abolished. Among the group's most prominent members is writer and journalist Wajeha Al-Huwaider.

Last June, Al-Huwaider published an open letter to US President Barack Obama asking him to press King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to release Saudi women from the yoke of male guardianship the next time they meet. She compared Saudi women to birds with smeared wings after an oil spill, unable to fly.

'They have no control over their lives, and they cannot fly freely to go to a place where they can feel safe,' she wrote. 'This describes Saudi women's lives. I know that kind of pain. I have been living it most of my life.'

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