April 23, 2007
THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON:
More Saudi women join the workforce, but limits remain strict: They are challenging sex segregation, taking jobs in education, medicine, and banking (Dan Murphy, 4/24/07, The Christian Science Monitor)
Posted by Orrin Judd at April 23, 2007 5:36 PMJust as in the West, Saudi women are graduating from universities at higher rates than men. And they are demanding opportunities that the ulema – the Islamic scholars who hold vast sway in the Kingdom – have long denied them.
They are taking jobs in education, medicine, and banking. Lately, the country's labor minister has been pushing for legal changes that would allow more women to work in retail jobs and factories – a sharp challenge to Saudi Arabia's sex segregation.
a sharp challenge to Saudi Arabia's sex segregation.
They can still keep their segregation by forbidding men from shopping in stores, and keeping the men indoors while the women are going to work. Most of their men who mindlessly stay in the 7th century are useless anyway. Keep them in caves if they must to learn from their so-called scholars. Let the women enter the 21st century.
Posted by: ic at April 23, 2007 7:27 PMBrilliant! They're heads are already in caves, so why not bring their bodies along as well.
Posted by: erp at April 24, 2007 9:44 AMJokes aside, it is an encouraging trend.
Ic is on the right track: rapid Westernization seems to favor political power for women, as in the Philippines.
Posted by: Lou Gots at April 24, 2007 3:53 PM