JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia -- Even for a panel discussion here at the Jeddah Economic Forum on the role of women in Saudi Arabia, the sexes were separated by a high barrier and women had to enter the room through what was called the "Female Entrance." The women -- most of them highly educated and generally affluent -- wore black abayas and, when they asked a question from the floor, they were not shown on the meeting hall's closed-circuit TV. At moments like this, I heard Dorothy's words to Toto in "The Wizard of Oz": "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Some of the discussion was about driving. This is something women cannot do in Saudi Arabia. The custom -- now a law -- imposes quite a burden on the society, not to mention individual women. Every working woman needs a driver. As more and more women work outside the home, more drivers are needed. The custom has few defenders among progressive Saudis, but the rest of society may be a different question. One of the male panelists -- someone who favored giving women the right to drive -- wondered if putting women behind the wheel would set off riots. A discussion ensued. After a while it was possible to forget that driving was under discussion -- not say, divorce or (gasp!) the end of polygamy, or even women's suffrage. Women behind the wheel. Soccer moms with kids in the back of the SUV. Not here, though. Plenty of soccer, but no soccer moms.
When coming to Saudi Arabia from the United States, you need to set your watch. Officially, the time difference is eight hours ahead of the East Coast. Unofficially, I think it's about 250 years behind. Much of this feeling has to do with the obvious status of women. To the highly successful women (and men) brought here by the Council on Foreign Relations, it is a repellent, mysterious, puzzling and in-your-face aspect of a society that is so at odds with not just the West, but even the rest of the Arab world. I once had dinner at the home of a poor Egyptian in Cairo who hid his wife and daughter from me. They stayed in the kitchen and every once in a while an arm would emerge from behind a curtain and offer us more food. But even in Egypt, a somewhat conservative Muslim society, women drive. Saudi Arabia is a place unto itself.
Saudi Arabia produces a good deal of the world's oil. But its most obvious product has to be cultural contradictions. I went to visit a firm called Al-Daleel Information Systems. Its president is Amr Mohamed Al Faisal, an architect and, almost incidentally, the grandson of the former King Faisal. The firm does a variety of whiz-bang things having to do with data storage and computer mapping and, of course, architecture. An employee showed me a handheld device which showed a map of downtown Jeddah. You could zoom in and zoom out and find your way anywhere. But you could not find your way around this contradiction: the employee was a woman. She was draped in black and worked in a room reserved for women. The women prefer this arrangement, I was told. This way, they don't have to remain fully covered.
Somewhere -- off-stage and out of sight -- are the religious authorities. They have their own police, ready to pounce on any inappropriately dressed woman. Their power is so great that they have managed to stop time. It is the religious authorities who will not permit women to drive or vote, and insist that they dress in non-Gucci black. Back in 1990, some 50 women took to their cars in protest. The religious authorities reacted with alarm. Once women drove cars, who knew what would follow? To the religious, this was a clear moral issue with grave sexual overtones. The women were punished, their families suffered and a sexist custom was codified into law.
How long can this continue? Maybe as long as oil prices remain high and the kingdom can afford a sexist version of the racial segregation Americans once practiced. In the end, though, economics and common sense will trump religious zealotry and women will be liberated. Some women here think it will take two more generations. They should know. But sometimes an outsider has a keener eye for absurdities -- not to mention the satellite dishes on almost every roof that download what women all over the world are doing. Not yet, but soon . . .
Ladies, start your engines.
cohenr@washpost.com
