Saudi women are treated disgracefully, but let’s not get too smug
IT looks like Saudi Arabia could be one of the main sponsors of the Women’s World Cup. Along with big brands Coca-Cola, Adidas and Visa, the Middle Eastern country, most famous for having monumental amounts of oil and a long history of oppressing women’s rights, will have its name plastered all over stadiums in Australia and New Zealand, where the soccer tournament is taking place next summer.
The marketing team tasked with selling the ‘Visit Saudi’ campaign must have been giddy at their own genius.
Of course, there have been a few changes over the last few years in Saudi. In a bid to break free from their considerable reliance on the oil industry and transform the economy, they’ve been working on how to make it a more attractive, less controversial place for the more politically conscientious tourist to visit – as well as making it easier to attract foreign investment.
One of their much-maligned flaws has been the extraordinary restrictions half their population have lived under for generations. But as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reformation plan, called simply ‘Vision 2030’, Saudi women are now allowed to drive cars.
They can also leave the house without a male family member to accompany them, while many of them now even have jobs, such as being a border control guard, or working as a tour guide – something that would have been unthinkable as little as three or four years ago.
They can mingle publicly with the opposite sex at concerts and in the cinema, things that were previously banned. And super-strict dress regulations have been relaxed. Thankfully, since 2018, they are also allowed into stadiums to watch sports, which, given the Saudi bid to help sponsor the Women’s World Cup, presumably makes it easier for Fifa to think about giving them the gig – although it’s more likely the billions Saudi Arabia has generously pumped into sports of all kinds will be the ultimate clincher in that decision.
And as we know from the recent Qatar-based men’s tournament, Fifa doesn’t really care about where the money comes from, as long as it comes.
However, it is important to acknowledge that Fifa has struggled to find serious investment for the women’s game, despite the surge in interest in the sport over the last few years. There just isn’t that much interest, yet, in financially supporting the female tournaments and they get just a fraction of what the men get. But still. When it all just smacks of being such a cynical and blatant marketing ploy, you do have to wonder if there is any point where somebody, somewhere with some kind of power and sway steps up and says, ‘Ahh now, come on lads’. It would seem not.
Before we all get too pious on the subject, it’s not like we’re all that far behind the Saudis. Not in relative terms.
We have a civil service that many of our mothers had to resign from once they got married. The shameful history of our Magdalene Laundries for our ‘fallen women’ has travelled the world – the last one in Waterford only shut its doors in 1996.
And as we get ready this Monday to enjoy our first ever bank holiday to mark St Brigid’s Day – Ireland’s only female patron saint – it’s only a few days since the first ever busts of women in Trinity’s Old Library were finally unveiled.
It only took them 280 years. Ever since they first started sticking them up in 1743, the 40 marble busts that line the hallowed shelves of one of Ireland’s most popular tourist attractions, The Long Room, have all been men.
From Aristotle and Plato to Wolfe Tone and the Duke of Wellington, all of them are undoubtedly well worthy to stare out at students and tourists alike. But not one of them a woman.
On Wednesday, February 1, the actual St Brigid’s Day, the four milk-white statues were unveiled at a special ceremony by Helen Shenton, Trinity’s first female librarian, and Linda Doyle, the college’s first ever female provost. Also there was former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, who is now the chancellor of Trinity, just the second woman to ever hold both those posts.
You see, we’re not all that far ahead really. The four women now honoured in marble were chosen from over 500 nominations, and presumably there was no shortage of worthy winners. Of the eventual shortlist, the best known is probably Lady Augusta Gregory of the Irish literary revival.
There’s also Augusta Ada King, who helped design the first analytical engine and precursor to the computer in 1843, and Mary Wollstonecraft, author of women’s rights bible A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women, from 1792. And scientist Rosalind Franklin, whose work on DNA and RNA is considered revolutionary.
As Mary McAleese noted in her speech, ‘gender diversity and inclusion were a long time arriving in Trinity’.
Perhaps it’s not the worst idea to train a spotlight on Saudi Arabia during the World Cup this summer, while also pulling in some serious cash for the tournament. Like the situation in Qatar, these are regimes that can be easy to ignore when you’re not actually living in them.
Unfortunately, no matter how many charities or human rights organisations try to publicise what the reality of daily life for women and others who are oppressed in these places actually is, nothing really sinks in until it’s placed firmly on a podium we can’t ignore.
It’s not the kind of publicity they’re looking for, but it might help keep things moving in the right direction.