9 ms·

Saudi king orders that women no longer need man’s permission to travel or study

91 points by elmar 9y ago

muninn_ 9y ago
Is it just me, or is it that ever since Saudi Arabia joined the UN Women's Rights Council that they have changed quite a few policies? I was very critical of this initially, but if it results in pro-women changes, then that's good.
- astebbin 9y ago
  They've changed policies for now. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, however, so we'll have to hope these changes stick with the next ruler.
drspacemonkey 9y ago
Wow, did not expect that from King Salman. He's supposed to be quite the hardliner as compared to his predecessor.
alphabettsy 9y ago
Is this a credible source?
- ankushnarula 9y ago
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4479488/Saudi-king-orders-relaxation-male-guardianship.html#ixzz4gOp7T2qR http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4479488/Saudi-king-o... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-male-guardianship-relax-women-work-study-gender-equality-a7721641.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-ar...
  - unfunco 9y ago
    Article similarities aside, those might be two of the worst websites to quote as sources, the Daily Mail is banned from being cited on Wikipedia as it's not a reputable source; and the Independent is no longer producing what many people would consider journalism.
    - tutufan 9y ago
      There's a lot of that going around these days...
    - ankushnarula 9y ago
      Those two links came up when I typed my initial search to verify the original source. When I later changed my query to "saudi arabia male guardianship" I found the main stream of related articles on Google News: https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=d8vQiW5woz_iD_MaFaFAQMVeK6WbM&q=saudi+arabia+male+guardianship https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=d8vQiW5woz_iD_MaFaFAQ... Note: I am not evaluating thousands of sourced references per day like Wikipedia - nor do I have a partisan political agenda. In this case, I evaluated the source content and it seemed fairly apolitical. Very likely, both of my linked sources used an AP or Reuters articles as their primary source.
icu 9y ago
To think in 2017 that this isn't the norm around the world just goes to show how good we have it in the west and how far we as a species has to go.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
  This is the norm around the world. Saudi and wherever this is not already the norm are in the minority.
  - woodandsteel 9y ago
    That's true, but think how much worse things would be if modern western civilization had never happened.
    - legolas2412 9y ago
      I wouldn't go down the what-if road. While it is obvious that human rights are a result of progressive European and American countries. But the world would be a much different place if the Europeans didn't go around colonizing. Several of the Victorian era rules imposed by the Britishers in India were regressive. They also caused communal divisions for their own gains. It's not fair to forget the evils of imperialism while basking in the grandeur of industrialization.
  - wand3r 9y ago
    It really puts the new-wave American feminism into perspective. Americans/Europeans/Nords are living in a great time for equality. It's not perfect but: > This is the norm. China, India, Africa, the Middle East, parts of America and Europe - That is the norm or analagous to it.
    - ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
      Women don't need permission from a man to travel, make a police complaint or study in China, India and almost everywhere else, certainly not by law like this story. I'm just saying that it is the norm in almost everywhere in the world in 2017, Saudi Arabia is an aberration.
zensavona 9y ago
"The order made by King Salman, pictured, is the latest in a series of steps to include more women in the workforce to help diversify the country’s economy and reduce its reliance on oil" So this tells us a couple of things: 1. If this whole oppressing women thing was ever about religion (that is their justification), they are pretty willing to forget religion when they need money. 2. That whole oil thing isn't going so great for them these days.
- tsomctl 9y ago
  The whole oil thing is going great for them. They just realize it's not going to be great forever, and they should prepare for that day. On a related note, they are also increasing their use on solar. For one such example, see http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabia-To-Spend-50-Billion-On-Massive-Solar-Push.html http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabia-To-Sp...
- protomyth 9y ago
  The whole oil thing isn't going well for them. The whole OPEC agreement seems to have holes, and fracking is becoming cheaper as the process improves putting a max on what oil can be sold for. We'll see post IPO.
  - narrowrail 9y ago
    Near as I can tell, the oil industry has been a series of boom/bust cycles since the '20s. OPEC has always been this way as well, it's always been a gentleman's agreement of sorts, not to mention the sanctioned countries operating outside of the open market. It's also important to note that "oil" varies quite a bit in its composition and the process to refine oil of different qualities requires significant refinery (re)configurations.
    - protomyth 9y ago
      True, Saudi & ND / TX shale oil are high quality where Canada's oil sands and Venezuela are not. Although it is very cheap for SA to produce oil, shale is getting cheaper (which has made the oil sands less desirable). The recent OPEC agreement to limit oil just doesn't seem to be working.
sytelus 9y ago
>But Saudi Arabia was still ranked 141 of 144 countries in the 2016 Global Gender Gap So apparently there are 3 countries below SA. To find out what these odd places are I went to http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/rankings/ http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/ran.... And apparently these 3 countries are Syria, Pakistan and Yemen! How is that even possible? Didn't Pakistan had a female prime minister? And I believe there were no rigorous restrictions on clothings or driving or working for women in any of these countries.
- verroq 9y ago
  Maybe if you overlook the honour killings and fored marriages
- jim-jim-jim 9y ago
  There are regions in all three countries controlled by Taliban/Al Qaeda. Maybe that was factored into it on top of the official laws of each country, which I also presume are more liberal than those of the KSA.
- i_feel_great 9y ago
  The female prime minister of Pakistan was Benazir Bhutto, a scion of the wealthy and powerful Bhutto family. Her father was a former prime minister, Zulfikar Bhutto. Gender gaps do not apply to women from wealthy and powerful backgrounds.
candiodari 9y ago
Women are still not considered their own legal person in Saudi Arabia. While this is progress, for sure, this upgrades the position of women from outright slaves (perhaps comparable to the legal status of a dog or other pet in the west), and this doesn't change that. In sharia/islam, women are the legal property (effectively, not "in legal theory") of their "guardian". When they're married (yes I'm using the passive, they don't get to pick when, where & to whom after all) that becomes their husband. They have full legal authority over them. In fact they have less rights than a dog has in the West: in legal theory, you cannot legally just abandon a dog in the west, but you can just abandon a woman, even if you're her guardian, in Saudi Arabia.
- paulddraper 9y ago
  > you can just abandon a woman Maybe I misunderstand, but I think you can do that in the West. Or are you just saying there aren't alimony payments?
  - harry8 9y ago
    once abandoned she can be arrested for being in public without a man. Raped. Then whipped for adultery because she was raped. Seriously, if you put it in a novel about a fictitious country you'd be accused of hyperbole. Saudi Arabia, allies to the west where they cut peoples heads off in public with a sword because they think they're gay. No really. Our allies. If Saudi doesn't make you think there could be a problem with war machine corruption driving invasion in the middle east, what would? Iran is very civilized by comparison, yeah the bozos with the death sentence for a Booker Prize winning author, Rushdie, look good in comparison. McCain still singing "Bomb Iran, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the beach boys? Nobody seems to hold Saudi responsible for originating bin laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers. If any nation state was responsible for that it's saudi, not Iraq. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKhX4poO0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKhX4poO0o Saudi, our allies. Makes you sick, don't it?
    - cup 9y ago
      >once abandoned she can be arrested for being in public without a man. Raped. Then whipped for adultery because she was raped. Seriously, if you put it in a novel about a fictitious country you'd be accused of hyperbole. The fact that this can be posted and unchallenged for 2 hours on this website is interesting considering the userbase typically touts themselves as on the right end of the intellectual bell curve.

91 points by elmar 9y ago

Is it just me, or is it that ever since Saudi Arabia joined the UN Women's Rights Council that they have changed quite a few policies? I was very critical of this initially, but if it results in pro-women changes, then that's good.

astebbin 9y ago
They've changed policies for now. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, however, so we'll have to hope these changes stick with the next ruler.

drspacemonkey 9y ago

Wow, did not expect that from King Salman. He's supposed to be quite the hardliner as compared to his predecessor.

alphabettsy 9y ago

Is this a credible source?

ankushnarula 9y ago
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4479488/Saudi-king-orders-relaxation-male-guardianship.html#ixzz4gOp7T2qR http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4479488/Saudi-king-o... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-male-guardianship-relax-women-work-study-gender-equality-a7721641.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-ar...
- unfunco 9y ago
  Article similarities aside, those might be two of the worst websites to quote as sources, the Daily Mail is banned from being cited on Wikipedia as it's not a reputable source; and the Independent is no longer producing what many people would consider journalism.
  - tutufan 9y ago
    There's a lot of that going around these days...
  - ankushnarula 9y ago
    Those two links came up when I typed my initial search to verify the original source. When I later changed my query to "saudi arabia male guardianship" I found the main stream of related articles on Google News: https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=d8vQiW5woz_iD_MaFaFAQMVeK6WbM&q=saudi+arabia+male+guardianship https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=d8vQiW5woz_iD_MaFaFAQ... Note: I am not evaluating thousands of sourced references per day like Wikipedia - nor do I have a partisan political agenda. In this case, I evaluated the source content and it seemed fairly apolitical. Very likely, both of my linked sources used an AP or Reuters articles as their primary source.

icu 9y ago

To think in 2017 that this isn't the norm around the world just goes to show how good we have it in the west and how far we as a species has to go.

ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
This is the norm around the world. Saudi and wherever this is not already the norm are in the minority.
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  That's true, but think how much worse things would be if modern western civilization had never happened.
  - legolas2412 9y ago
    I wouldn't go down the what-if road. While it is obvious that human rights are a result of progressive European and American countries. But the world would be a much different place if the Europeans didn't go around colonizing. Several of the Victorian era rules imposed by the Britishers in India were regressive. They also caused communal divisions for their own gains. It's not fair to forget the evils of imperialism while basking in the grandeur of industrialization.
- wand3r 9y ago
  It really puts the new-wave American feminism into perspective. Americans/Europeans/Nords are living in a great time for equality. It's not perfect but: > This is the norm. China, India, Africa, the Middle East, parts of America and Europe - That is the norm or analagous to it.
  - ajeet_dhaliwal 9y ago
    Women don't need permission from a man to travel, make a police complaint or study in China, India and almost everywhere else, certainly not by law like this story. I'm just saying that it is the norm in almost everywhere in the world in 2017, Saudi Arabia is an aberration.

zensavona 9y ago

"The order made by King Salman, pictured, is the latest in a series of steps to include more women in the workforce to help diversify the country’s economy and reduce its reliance on oil" So this tells us a couple of things: 1. If this whole oppressing women thing was ever about religion (that is their justification), they are pretty willing to forget religion when they need money. 2. That whole oil thing isn't going so great for them these days.

tsomctl 9y ago
The whole oil thing is going great for them. They just realize it's not going to be great forever, and they should prepare for that day. On a related note, they are also increasing their use on solar. For one such example, see http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabia-To-Spend-50-Billion-On-Massive-Solar-Push.html http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Saudi-Arabia-To-Sp...
protomyth 9y ago
The whole oil thing isn't going well for them. The whole OPEC agreement seems to have holes, and fracking is becoming cheaper as the process improves putting a max on what oil can be sold for. We'll see post IPO.
- narrowrail 9y ago
  Near as I can tell, the oil industry has been a series of boom/bust cycles since the '20s. OPEC has always been this way as well, it's always been a gentleman's agreement of sorts, not to mention the sanctioned countries operating outside of the open market. It's also important to note that "oil" varies quite a bit in its composition and the process to refine oil of different qualities requires significant refinery (re)configurations.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    True, Saudi & ND / TX shale oil are high quality where Canada's oil sands and Venezuela are not. Although it is very cheap for SA to produce oil, shale is getting cheaper (which has made the oil sands less desirable). The recent OPEC agreement to limit oil just doesn't seem to be working.

sytelus 9y ago

>But Saudi Arabia was still ranked 141 of 144 countries in the 2016 Global Gender Gap So apparently there are 3 countries below SA. To find out what these odd places are I went to http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/rankings/ http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2016/ran.... And apparently these 3 countries are Syria, Pakistan and Yemen! How is that even possible? Didn't Pakistan had a female prime minister? And I believe there were no rigorous restrictions on clothings or driving or working for women in any of these countries.

verroq 9y ago
Maybe if you overlook the honour killings and fored marriages
jim-jim-jim 9y ago
There are regions in all three countries controlled by Taliban/Al Qaeda. Maybe that was factored into it on top of the official laws of each country, which I also presume are more liberal than those of the KSA.
i_feel_great 9y ago
The female prime minister of Pakistan was Benazir Bhutto, a scion of the wealthy and powerful Bhutto family. Her father was a former prime minister, Zulfikar Bhutto. Gender gaps do not apply to women from wealthy and powerful backgrounds.

candiodari 9y ago

Women are still not considered their own legal person in Saudi Arabia. While this is progress, for sure, this upgrades the position of women from outright slaves (perhaps comparable to the legal status of a dog or other pet in the west), and this doesn't change that. In sharia/islam, women are the legal property (effectively, not "in legal theory") of their "guardian". When they're married (yes I'm using the passive, they don't get to pick when, where & to whom after all) that becomes their husband. They have full legal authority over them. In fact they have less rights than a dog has in the West: in legal theory, you cannot legally just abandon a dog in the west, but you can just abandon a woman, even if you're her guardian, in Saudi Arabia.

paulddraper 9y ago
> you can just abandon a woman Maybe I misunderstand, but I think you can do that in the West. Or are you just saying there aren't alimony payments?
- harry8 9y ago
  once abandoned she can be arrested for being in public without a man. Raped. Then whipped for adultery because she was raped. Seriously, if you put it in a novel about a fictitious country you'd be accused of hyperbole. Saudi Arabia, allies to the west where they cut peoples heads off in public with a sword because they think they're gay. No really. Our allies. If Saudi doesn't make you think there could be a problem with war machine corruption driving invasion in the middle east, what would? Iran is very civilized by comparison, yeah the bozos with the death sentence for a Booker Prize winning author, Rushdie, look good in comparison. McCain still singing "Bomb Iran, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the beach boys? Nobody seems to hold Saudi responsible for originating bin laden and most of the 9/11 hijackers. If any nation state was responsible for that it's saudi, not Iraq. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKhX4poO0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKhX4poO0o Saudi, our allies. Makes you sick, don't it?
  - cup 9y ago
    >once abandoned she can be arrested for being in public without a man. Raped. Then whipped for adultery because she was raped. Seriously, if you put it in a novel about a fictitious country you'd be accused of hyperbole. The fact that this can be posted and unchallenged for 2 hours on this website is interesting considering the userbase typically touts themselves as on the right end of the intellectual bell curve.