My Guardian Knows What's Best For Me

A catchy slogan, certainly. It's a campaign led by Saudi Princess Jawaher bint Jalawi against those liberals and feminists who are trying to improve the status of women in the Kingdom: rather in the spirit of Marie Antoinette advising the poor on the benefits of eating cake. Here's a MEMRI look at some press reaction:

Princess Jawaher's campaign is a response to the struggle launched in July 2009 by Saudi women's rights activist Wajeha Al-Huweidar calling for abolishing the mahram ("guardian") law, which requires women to obtain the approval of a male relative for nearly any move they make in their lives. As part of her campaign, Al-Huweidar, together with her colleagues, went to the King Fahd Bridge, which joins Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and demanded to leave the country without a guardian's approval

Saudi journalist Sabria Jawhar, at the Huffington Post, while unsupportive of the efforts of the women's rights activists - "It's silly. Public acts of defiance are unseemly in Saudi society...If one wonders why great numbers of Saudi women don't join Al-Huwaider it's because they are asked to defy Islam" - can't summon much enthusiasm for the princess either. Elsewhere in the Saudi press the princess doesn't get much support either. 

But the best response is from Dr. Elham Manea, translated at  Saudiwoman's Weblog, and not referenced in the MEMRI piece:   

Most of them belong to the Saudi aristocrats. Their leader is a princess. Their hands are velvet. They live in palaces and villas. How could we blame them for not knowing the reality of average Saudi women?...

These campaigners who stand againsts activists see nothing strange in the fact that we are the only Muslim country that bans women driving. Isn’t it funny that Saudi Arabia is unique in this odd religious aspect? But it has always been so. They don’t wonder as to how a woman’s freedom in our country has been choked and strangled a thousand times over,so that the poor soul cannot make a move without a male’s permission, a male who’s only distinction is his genitals. To the degree that we see nothing weird about a twenty year old being reprimanded by her ten year old brother.

My guardian knows what’s best for me, seriously?!

So what does the princess's guardian think of it all? 

Well,...I think we can guess.

Comments

[kris]

Sorry I cannot put my thoughts a bit more elegantly but

Fuck HuffPo.

Seriously, it is supposed to be some liberal bastion yet you'd have some difficulty finding one feminist that isn't a cultural relativist. I would have thought feminism and cultural relativitism would be mutually exclusive in any event.

And sorry, am I seriously supposed to listen to a lecture in equality from some burkha'd up chick?

Further, she can bleat on about how it's the culture and not religion - but the fact remains that Islam has yet to have its reformation.

I won't be holding my breath on that one as I could be waiting a very long time.