[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Saudis' Foolish Sexism LATimes

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-saudi12oct12.story

EDITORIAL

Saudis' Foolish Sexism

 October 12, 2004

 Among the inspiring sights from Afghanistan's elections Saturday, few
surpassed the lines of women waiting to vote. Some wore burkas; others
covered their hair with scarves but left their faces free. Sadly, that
vision is out of reach for the women of Saudi Arabia, be they desert
dwellers or urban bearers of PhDs, as the kingdom struggles to emerge from
the Middle Ages.

 Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz, a rock among the
hard-liners, announced Sunday that women would not take part in municipal
elections next year. The balloting had been billed as a major step toward
breaking the shackles of autocratic rule, and there had been hints that
women might get to vote.

 Saudi officials boast that women are encouraged to get college degrees.
They neglect to say that afterward it's back to the women's quarters at home
for virtually all the graduates. The jobs go to men. That's true even if the
men have to be imported: Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and other foreigners are
hired to do jobs that Saudis won't, such as driving women, who are forbidden
to get behind the wheel.

 Depriving half the population of a voice and stake in governance is foolish
at a moment when the royal family has finally awakened to the threat it
faces from Islamic extremists. It may play well with conservatives,
including those among the nation's hundreds of princes, but it won't appease
the radicals who see their rulers as corrupt. It will make Saudi Arabia a
weaker society, less able to resist the extremists.

 U.S. forces and international aid groups poured lives, money and effort
into helping Afghan women vote. Washington's silence regarding Saudi women
is deafening. 


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