It's winter in Jeddah, the most cosmopolitan city in Saudi Arabia. Even so, the thermometer almost never drops below thirty degrees. The shopping centers, miles and miles of wide corridors of polished marble and glass, are also temples of consumption - the only thing that differentiates these malls from one in Miami or London are the brands written in Arabic -, climatic refuges where the niqab, The veil that covers the entire face except the eyes is more bearable. They dress in white, they in black. It's hard to see them shopping alone. They walk with their families or with children, but it is becoming easier to find them behind the counter.
“This is a big change. Ten years ago it was inconceivable that a woman could work with men in a store,” highlights Maha Akeel, an expert in communication and social development. In 2007 she was the first woman to chair the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the largest intergovernmental alliance after the United Nations, with 57 member countries and headquarters in Jeddah. She finished her term last year and is now a professor of international relations at Dar Al-Hekma University: “I wouldn't say that things are easy for women, but they are easier than they were for my generation and the previous one, who struggled so much...".
Driving changed everything and sped up the process. That was five years ago. “Someone from the family always had to accompany you or pay, whoever could, a driver to do anything. This was one of the big reasons why many women did not work... driving empowered us,” says Akkel. Achieving this was not easy in a society in which in any cafeteria, restaurant, soccer stadium or public space there was an area for men and another for women. Some activists paid, and continue to pay, for their demands in prison.
Living in black and white. The most open city in Saudi Arabia – spices and silks from the East have passed through here on their way to Europe since time immemorial and football, F1 and golf World Cups have been held here – it is also the main gateway to Mecca, located just 60 kilometers away. Women took the wheel in 2018 but they could not have a bank account or get a passport without the permission of their guardian (their father, their brother, their husband or even their son), they could not certify the death of a family member or register a birth , bans that were lifted in 2019.
Akeel – who completed his studies in the United States where his brother lives – started out as a journalist and then head of communications for the OIC, “I had to write articles and some men refused to talk to me,” he remembers. But she persisted and ended up outranking everyone. “I did the same interviews as the rest of the candidates, she did not want or expect any special treatment for being a woman,” she maintains. She recognizes that without the support of the family it would have been more difficult and had another responsibility: “To show that you can overcome difficulties and set an example for young girls to be strong and persist in what they want to do.” Akeel covers her head with a light veil. And not always, but it is not usual. When a religious police officer told her to cover her face, she refused, “in Riyadh they would arrest you.”
“All my sisters and cousins drive!” exclaims Rawan, a restless 21-year-old journalist. She studied chemistry at King Abdulaziz University but soon decided that journalism was her thing and she changed. “For me it was easy, because my father has always wanted me to study.” She could be Akeel's student. Rawan is part of a new generation, aware that, in just a few years, job opportunities have multiplied for them. However, at her university there is still a campus for men and another for women. They never mix. And she, unlike Akeel, wears a black niqab, “because I like it, because I feel more comfortable in it.”
Can the degree of openness be measured by the percentage of women who continue to cover their faces? “I'm not sure... In the West it is perceived as an imposition and it is not entirely true, there are other factors; “I know very prepared and very open-minded women who cover themselves…” reflects Akeel. Now the religious police no longer stop them on the street. “The important thing is that women work and have autonomy, regardless of how they dress.” The challenge, Akeel insists, is that those 66% of graduates, “also in engineering and mathematics, manage to work, empower them to lead and be able to return to society what has been invested in them without feeling guilty.” The Vision 2030 program promoted by Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, is going in that direction, however Human Right Watch continues to warn in its annual report of the discrimination suffered by women in a country where the judiciary remains in the hands of men.
