{"id":10314,"date":"2018-12-20T13:37:35","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T11:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10314"},"modified":"2018-12-20T13:37:35","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T11:37:35","slug":"film-hailing-saudi-progress-on-womens-rights-branded-dreadful-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2018\/12\/film-hailing-saudi-progress-on-womens-rights-branded-dreadful-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Film hailing Saudi progress on women’s rights branded ‘dreadful propaganda’"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE GUARDIAN<\/a><\/p>\n

By\u00a0Karen McVeigh<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Feminism Saudi-style? ‘Next to every great woman, a man believing in her’<\/h3>\n

See the video HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Footage of women using wingsuits fails to take off as critics condemn strapline suggesting great women are supported by men<\/p>\n

A film intended to celebrate progress on women\u2019s rights in\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/a>\u00a0has been condemned by experts and rights groups as a \u201cdreadful piece of propaganda\u201d that will serve only to reinforce the existing culture of discrimination in the country.<\/p>\n

Launched by the Saudi-based organisation Alwaleed Philanthropies, one of the world\u2019s largest private philanthropic foundations, the film aims to highlight reforms in the deeply conservative state, where women can now\u00a0attend sports events<\/a>\u00a0and will soon be able\u00a0to drive cars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It shows a woman being encouraged by a man to drive a car, as well as a woman in traditional Abaya being urged by a man to take a wingsuit flight \u2013 similar to skydiving \u2013 off a cliff.<\/p>\n

But the tone of the footage \u2013 which shows men urging women to follow their dreams and culminates with the tag line: \u201cNext to every great woman, a man believing in her\u201d \u2013 has been criticised as patronising and discriminatory.<\/p>\n

Dr Madawi al-Rasheed, a visiting professor at the London School of Economics\u2019 Middle East Centre, questioned the commercial value of the film and branded it a \u201cdreadful piece of propaganda\u201d that showed only women dependent on men.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first reaction was this is a terrible campaign for Toyoto jeeps \u2013 it would not appeal to Saudi women who want to drive through the street of Riadh to get to work,\u201d said al-Rasheed. \u201cIt focuses on women protected by a man.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there are a high percentage \u2013 millions \u2013 of women in Saudi Arabia\u00a0who are unmarried<\/a>, widows and those who choose not to marry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both men and women in Saudi Arabia are patronised and deprived of basic human rights, said al-Rasheed, \u201cbut women suffer double the discrimination. They are not legal citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign seemed to be promoting the idea of equality in Saudi Arabia to the outside world, she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018It focuses on women protected by a man\u2019: experts have heaped scorn on the film.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Photograph: Alwaleed Philanthropies for the Guardian<\/h5>\n

A UN rights watchdog that has welcomed recent decisions on driving and allowing women to launch their own businesses said last month that, if discrimination against women is to end, Saudi Arabia must abolish its pervasive system of male guardianship and give women access to justice.<\/p>\n

The UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women said the state should enforce a recent order that would entitle all women to obtain a passport, travel or study abroad, choose their residency, and access healthcare \u201cwithout having to seek their guardian\u2019s consent\u201d.<\/p>\n

Suad Abu-Dayyeh, the Middle East and North African consultant for Equality Now, said: \u201cThis film is not accurate, it is not fair and it is not just. Of course, we should recognise the role of men in supporting women\u2019s rights. But it should not be the core of the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know in Saudi Arabia, women are very restricted according to their families, their culture, religious beliefs and according to the system. Their basic rights are denied. They can\u2019t take a courageous stance towards the liberation of women. They can\u2019t transcend that reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alwaleed Philanthropies, which aims to help empower women, said the film was inspired by UN Women\u2019s #HeForShe<\/a>\u00a0campaign. It is headed by the Saudi princess Lamia bint Majed al Saud, and its launch coincided with a wider debate in Saudi Arabia about whether the end of the driving ban signalled the start of more wholesale reforms.<\/p>\n

The princess told the Guardian she hoped the campaign, dedicated to men and women, would challenge stereotypes. \u201cWe want to celebrate the generations of Saudi women who have pioneered change, as well as the Saudi men who have supported them in their pursuit of empowerment \u2013 this campaign is first and foremost dedicated to those local heroes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also want to reach an international audience in order to challenge some stereotypes of Saudi women as being oppressed and Saudi men as oppressors. We want to highlight the role that many Saudi men have played as supportive allies in this journey, and encourage more to do the same.<\/p>\n

Asked whether she believed the lifting of the driving ban was the prelude to greater equality, she said it was \u201ca step in the right direction\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLasting change cannot be delivered overnight, but women are securing more and more opportunities to be independent and to be empowered within the kingdom. For many people within Saudi Arabia and across the world, the driving ban was symbolic of Saudi women\u2019s lack of freedom. Lifting the ban will have huge practical implications for how Saudi women live and work, but it is also a clear sign from our leadership that as a society we are ready to move forward and modernise.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the inclusion of sky diving was to challenge stereotypes of a woman dressed in her Abaya and also to \u201cemphasise the message that the sky is the limit for Saudi women, especially when everyone in society works together\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last year, the foundation partnered with the Thomson Reuters Foundation to run a women\u2019s conference in Riyadh, titled Saudi Woman Can, to promote women\u2019s evolving roles, and to train female Saudi journalists. Other projects it has instigated inside the kingdom include encouraging women\u2019s participation in local council elections as well as supporting Saudi women\u2019s legal rights, via the Wa\u2019iyah Initiative for Women\u2019s Legal Rights.<\/p>\n

Abu-Dayyeh, who works with civil society groups all over the Middle East to promote women\u2019s rights, said that while she welcomed progress made by the Saudi government, it was \u201cvery far away\u201d from gender equality.<\/p>\n

Abu-Dayyeh said: \u201cWe have well-established civil society groups in Jordan and Lebanon. But there are no civil society organisations in Saudi Arabia. We have courageous female activists who are working separately, often to great cost. If we are talking about the battle for women\u2019s rights in the region, we need to double that fight in Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civil society does not exist in the kingdom.<\/p>\n

Sama Awaida, director of the women\u2019s study centre in Palestine, said the film was sending out the wrong message.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand how it can be about women\u2019s empowerment,\u201d said Awaida. \u201cWomen\u2019s empowerment is a long struggle, but it is about empowering women to be independent of men, not dependent on men.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feminism Saudi-style? ‘Next to every great woman, a man believing in her’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,43,11,17,49,10],"tags":[1029,168,1035],"class_list":["post-10314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-freedom-of-expression-and-media","category-human-rights-online-library","category-issues","category-women","category-womens-rights","category-world","tag-gender-inequality","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-womens-right","country-world","Documents-statements-multimedia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10318,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10314\/revisions\/10318"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}