Things are improving for women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but there is much more that still needs to be done — that’s according to Saudi Ambassador to the US Princess Reema bint Bandar, who was appointed to the position in 2019.
As the first woman in the Kingdom’s history to serve in this role, bint Bandar is aware of the power of representation and has worked to improve the rights of women in Saudi Arabia since stepping into her role.
Earlier this week, she appeared on a panel organised by US think-tank Atlantic Council, titled “The Rising Female Workforce in Saudi Arabia and Its Impact on the Private Sector,” where she discussed the push for women’s participation in her country’s workforce.
According to the 48-year old George Washington University alumni, the Kingdom’s economic future depends on establishing greater equality for women. No small feat for a nation that has a history of imprisoning women’s rights activists.
In a country where women were not allowed to drive up until a few years ago, gender equality is a huge upward battle.
Recent women’s achievements:
Since the launch of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Kingdom’s Vision 2030, the economic and social progress of women has “drastically improved”— according to the Ambassador.
“Recently, the World Bank looked at 190 economies, and they ranked Saudi Arabia number one in terms of economic and social progress for women,” she said.
“Today in the kingdom, we have more women receiving advanced degrees than men, more women enrolling in STEM, and more than 40 percent of small and medium-sized start-up companies are owned by women. Women today in Saudi Arabia enjoy equal pay.”
Is this true? A 2019 OECD study found that while female students accounted for more than two thirds of students studying undergraduate subjects in science, maths and statistics, less than 38 per cent graduated at a doctoral level.
Furthermore, the country had the lowest employment rate of tertiary-educated women — with just 41 per cent of them with jobs.
On women’s economic participation:
“Half of the world’s population are women, and yet, we still make up a fraction of leadership positions, of business owners, of middle management, and still too small a part of the overall workforce,” the Ambassador said. ”That needs to change. Because when women succeed, we all succeed.”
Yet women’s participation across society is restricted by the strict interpretation of Islamic law — meaning the separation of men and women is a defining aspect of the Kingdom.
Prior to 2018, women were not permitted to enter stadiums to watch sporting events, and it wasn’t until 2020 that the Kingdom established its own national women’s football team.
“It’s not about just the bottom line. It’s about creating a more inclusive and equitable society,” the Ambassador continued.
“It’s the only way that I believe we can ensure that global, social and economic advancement is actual advancement, meaning advancement for everyone…advancement that doesn’t embrace the need for gender equity, that’s just not real advancement.”
Women’s Agenda has reported on multiple cases of Saudi women being arrested and sentenced to prison for speaking out. In August last year, Salma al-Shehab was handed a 34-year prison sentence for using her Twitter account to retweet about women’s rights.
And it was only in 2019 when the Kingdom allowed women aged over 21-years the right to obtain a passport and to travel without the permission of a male guardian.
Nevertheless, the authorities failed to abolish the male guardianship system in its entirety — meaning men are still given considerable legal power over women.
In March 2022, the Kingdom legislated a series of discriminatory laws against women under the Personal Status Law (PSL).
Under the PSL, only men can be legal guardians, while women must have the consent of a male legal guardian to get married and for the marriage contract to be validated. Women are also not allowed to choose their own legal guardian, since the law defines the order of male legal guardians for marriage by rank — starting with the woman’s father, then his guardian, then the grandfather etc. In some instances, her guardian can even end up being her own son.
Is there equality between the sexes?
Clearly not. But the Ambassador is adamant things can be changed if more women enter the workforce.
“I believe we need more women in leadership roles paving the way. We need more women in middle management positions continuing the work. We need more women business owners, more mentorship programs focused on female success, and more people investing in women-led startups.”
While the Ambassador didn’t put forth any recommendations for how these goals might be reached, she insisted that the country needed “more women at the table that help to shape the policies that affect us all. We need more role models to show young girls what they can absolutely achieve.”
On Girls Education:
The Ambassador also stressed the importance of educating and training young girls from an early age.
“Education and training helps level the playing field. It gives women an equal footing in the workplace and fosters not only gender equality, but equity.”
“It also gives women greater control over their own financial lives, enabling them to participate more fully in the economic decision-making within their families and their communities. Education and training is about having the real-life skills. It’s about confidence-building, about preparing women to take their rightful place in society as full participants. We can shift cultural attitudes and norms around gender and business.”
How are these shifts being conducted?
In 2010, the kingdom’s first women’s college, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University was opened, giving female students better access to male-dominated fields such as medicine, computer science, management and pharmacology.
Less than five years later, Saudi women’s undergraduate enrolment rates surpassed those of men, with women comprising 52 per cent of all university students in the nation.
In 2005, a government-funded study-abroad program was launched to send young Saudi women to the US, UK, Canada and other countries each year. Yet women cannot study abroad on a government scholarship without guardian approval — the rules also require a male relative to accompany them throughout their studies abroad.
Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in 2019 that Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman “…wants to be viewed as a women’s rights reformer, but Rahaf showed just how laughably at odds this is from reality when the authorities try to hunt down fleeing women and tortures women’s rights activists in prison,” referring to Rahaf Mohammed — the young activist who has used social media to call out the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia.
Ambassador Princess Reema bint Bandar wants the world to focus on the positive accomplishments — like the record number of female Ambassadors for the Kingdom, reached earlier this year.
Haifa al-Jadea is the ambassador and head of the Kingdom’s mission to the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, Inas al-Shahwan is the Ambassador to Sweden and Iceland, Nisreen bint Hamad al-Shibel is the ambassador to Finland and Amal al-Moallimi is the Ambassador to Norway.
Promising future?
Before 2019, foreign travellers to Saudi Arabia could only visit the country for religious purposes. Since September 2019, the country has opened up nonreligious tourism. The government has set aside $1 trillion in the industry over the next decade, hoping to attract up to 100 million visitors annually by 2030. There are now “many, many female tour guides” operating their own businesses, as one American reporter discovered last month.
Despite its poor record on human rights and women’s rights, the Kingdom’s Deputy Minister of Commerce announced last month that its Vision 2030 (introduced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2016) seeks to improve women’s participation across all fields, developing initiatives that support women-related policies and helping women obtain positions at both ministerial and ambassadorial levels.