Women in Saudi Arabia

Video Transcript

Women are not, I shouldn’t say they’re not allowed to walk around, but it’s un-customary for them to walk around by themselves. They’ll walk either in groups of other women, or they’ll have some kind of male with them. It could be a son, it could be a husband, it could be a brother, nephew, something like that. But there are many instances where women have gotten accosted, these are Saudi women, by Saudi males, and because they weren’t escorted, they were the guilty party. In my most recent trip to Saudi Arabia was in Dammam, which was last year. That’s the first time I've been in Dammam, that’s on the eastern part of Saudi Arabia. I was very much surprised because it was probably the most Western of any place I've ever been in Saudi Arabia. I was actually in a food court in this big shopping mall and a young Saudi female, I say young she was probably 18-19. We were both standing in line at this fast food place in this food court, and she spoke very good English and she mentioned something like, ‘Do you want to go ahead and order?’ And I said, ‘No, I've already ordered.’ And she actually started to carry on a conversation. And she wasn't wearing the veil. And I just thought, ‘This is not typical of other places in Saudi Arabia, especially Riyadh, which is very, very conservative.  So, I guess my point is, it really depends on where you go within Saudi Arabia, how people interact with Westerners and each other. But I saw a lot more women there who didn't wear the veil. You’ll see that also in Jeddah. But in Riyadh, very, very seldom, ‘mutawa’ are everywhere, the religious police. And they enforce those standards. In fact I’ve met many Saudis that don't like living in Riyadh because they feel stifled.

In this video, a Saudi Arabia expert discusses women in Saudi Arabia.