Women In Saudi Arabia Today

The book studies the social issues related to the status of women in Saudi Arabia and the extent to which Saudi Arabian women actively participate in the development of their country. It also focuses on education and work outside the home as they affect the traditional role of the Saudi woman as wife, mother and homemaker. At the same time, those factors promote the participation of women in the development of Saudi Arabia. The book examines also the quality of Saudi women's lives in a traditional society and the meaning of their social reality. Intensive interviews were held with 100 Saudi women in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from different social, economic and educational levels.

The study focuses on education and work outside the home as they affect the traditional role of the Saudi woman as wife, mother and homemaker. At the same time those factors promote the participation of women in the development of Saudi Arabia.

The first book to situate the Saudi woman in a broader cultural context, this text explores a variety of themes, historical developments, and social taboos. It also investigates a wide range of writing by Saudi women, beginning with the first attempt by a woman to write for the public in the middle of the twentieth century up to the peak of the Saudi woman’s literary production in this millennium. It is also concerned with the Saudi woman’s social, economic, and religious contributions, making it possible for the reader to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the reality of Saudi women through studying and connecting the Saudi woman’s past with her present. As such, this book represents a major contribution to the study of women in the Middle East, and offers a unique contrast between fictional presentation and lived experience.

The cities of Saudi Arabia are among the most gender segregated in the world. In recent years the Saudi government has felt increasing international pressure to offer greater roles for women in society. Implicit in these calls for reform, however, is an assumption that the only "real" society is male society. Little consideration has been given to the rapidly evolving activities within women's spaces. This book joins young urban women in their daily lives—in the workplace, on the female university campus, at the mall—to show how these women are transforming Saudi cities from within and creating their own urban, professional, consumerist lifestyles. As young Saudi women are emerging as an increasingly visible social group, they are shaping new social norms. Their shared urban spaces offer women the opportunity to shed certain constraints and imagine themselves in new roles. But to feel included in this peer group, women must adhere to new constraints: to be sophisticated, fashionable, feminine, and modern. The position of "other" women—poor, rural, or non-Saudi women—is increasingly marginalized. While young urban women may embody the image of a "reformed" Saudi nation, the reform project ultimately remains incomplete, drawing new hierarchies and lines of exclusion among women.

Women's contributions to Arabic and Islamic society - be they cultural, religious, medical, or military - have been recorded by Muslim historians throughout the ages. No biographical dictionary of any worth was considered complete unless it mentioned prominent women, a tradition stemming from the earliest Islamic biographies which all included the female companions of the Prophet, as well as mothers of notable men. However, little has been written about the contribution of women from more recent contemporary central Arabian society. Published in association with Saudi Arabia's King Abdul Aziz Foundation for Research and Archives, Prominent Women from Central Arabia explores sources ranging from published material to manuscripts, documents, and oral history in an attempt to redress the balance. In all, the book contains 52 biographies of women who lived from the beginning of the 18th century until the death of King 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Saud in 1953. The women examined include notable poets, educators, and great donors of charitable works, amongst others. Above all, the book highlights the enormous contribution of the women of Central Arabia during the period under consideration, demonstrating that, contrary to popular misconception, their influence has in fact been highly significant.

This study explores how contemporary Saudi women writers use their writings as a way to gain control over the rules of cultural discourse in their society. The author examines the work of nine influential women writers and presents excerpts of their writings which appear here for the first time in English.