Saudi Gender Roles

Religion as a factor that influences gender inequality

In Saudi Arabia, religion holds importance in defining social norms, cultural concepts and relations between men and women. As an Islamic society, religion plays an important role in contextualising workplace gender equality in Saudi Arabia. An important precept of Islamic law is the doctrine related to the roles of men and women in society and within the family. Men have the primary obligation to provide for their family and women have the primary obligation is to look after their homes and provide care to their children. The Quran does indicates that men have a superior position compared to women: “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other...” In another place, the Quran says: “Of course, men are a degree above them in status...”. In Saudi Arabia, as in other Islamic countries, these teachings inform and shape ideas about women’s and men’s role in Islamic society which include “women’s most important role, according to society, is a homemaker and mother, while the man’s responsibility is to support and protect the wife and family.” From this brief introductory discussion, it can be seen that the Saudi Arabian society has definite rules related to the roles of men and women and these rules are traditional in nature as they are derived from the Islamic law precepts.

Indeed, Islam like Judaism and Christianity offers a very complex and complicated area of interpretation of the role, rights and status of women. The religious text in Islam is itself of a patriarchal nature. Within this patriarchal set up, men are provided a dominant role in the society and women are subservient to men. This applies both the public as well as private lives; in other words, the social rules derived from the Islamic law may have implications for work spaces as much as they have for home. This poses challenges for feminist scholars. For feminist scholars, it is difficult to question or challenge the text in Quran and they have to take the text in its entirety; this has led to Muslim feminist scholars arguing that the text of Quran itself is not oppressive of women rights, rather it is the interpretation of the text through a male dominated interpretative tradition, which has led to an oppressive and androcentric intent being given to the text of the Quran. Consequently, an approach to interpretation of Quran has been developed which allows the feminist scholars to interpret Quran in a liberal manner through a contextual and historic reading of the text of the Quran; this approach allows the Quran to be interpreted in consonance with positions that see a compatibility between the Quran on one hand and human rights, gender equality, and democratic positions on the other hand.

A liberal approach to interpretation of the Quran is not generally accepted in the predominant Saudi Arabian religious scholarship. Primarily, the interpretation of Quran is strict and orthodox in nature. There are significant ways in which the orthodox interpretation of the Sharia impacts the rights of women in countries where law is impacted by the Sharia. On the other hand, scholarship on the role of Islam as a mediator of rights of women also argues that Islam gives equal rights to men and women; this equality of rights between men and women is applicable in different spheres, like education, work place, and family. Regardless of this liberal approach to rights of women in the interpretation of the Sharia, the actual positioning of rights and status of women in the Saudi Arabian society indicates that women do not have equality vis a vis men in many areas of their lives. This is exemplified by the religious law application, means that women are subordinated to men in that women have to live under male authority. This is explained at some length below.

Male guardianship is one of the important aspects of Islamic societies like Saudi Arabia, and this impacts the position of women in the society. Male guardianship means that the woman is subject to the guardianship of her nearest male relative, who may be her father, brother, husband or son. She cannot buy property, travel, or take up work without the consent of the male guardian. Due to this concept of male guardianship, women are not free to take some decisions on their own. This may have implications for the women who are working outside their homes and may need permission from their male guardians if they have to travel for work. This is discussed at some length later in this chapter.

The Wahhabi school of thought also influences the position of women in Saudi Arabia, which is more rigid in its interpretation of the Quran as compared to other schools. The rigid interpretation of the Quran also impacts the socio-cultural values and traditions in Saudi Arabia. While the Quran does not forbid women from economic and political participation, the strict interpretation of the Quran does restrict the extent to which women can participate in economy and the polity, especially in families which are more conservative. This is one of the reasons why the “workforce participation rate of Saudi women is among the lowest in the region as Islamic teachings reinforce gender differences, granting men pre-eminence and authority over women.” It is also under the Wahhabi influence in the Arabian peninsula that orthodoxy is seen wherein innovations in Islam are rejected. This strict approach to Islam is a reason why interactions between men and women unrelated by blood are forbidden and it is normal that that women are to be accompanied by a male guardian. These religious edicts mean women in Saudi Arabia are limited to working in sex-segregated settings and employed in occupations, where they would fulfil the role of caregivers, such as, nursing, education, or even social work. Clearly, religious precepts can have significant impacts on the women and their interaction with professional work.

Religion has further implications on the occupational choices of women in Saudi Arabia. Due to the Islamic injunction against mixing between unrelated men and women, women may feel socially and religiously obligated to avoid mixing with men who are not mahram, that is men related to them. This may have implications for women in how they choose their places of work or even occupations to be those where their interaction with unrelated males will be restricted. Women’s dress code and behaviour is also strictly laid down in Islamic doctrine. The dress code includes the injunction that women should observe proper Islamic dress code, including wearing the Islamic Hijab (veil) whenever they move outside of their homes. This may also have implications for how women choose career options. This may also be a reason for segregation of women and men at workplace in Saudi Arabia.

A recent case study of a British multinational corporation in Saudi Arabia explored factors hindering gender equality efforts in Saudi Arabian workplaces. Interestingly, the researchers found formal and informal forces had a significant effect. Formal forces like laws and local policies were supportive and encouraging of gender equality. However, informal forces, especially those grounded in religious and cultural norms and traditions were significant factors in hindering gender equality efforts in workplaces. In other words, the positive work done by legal policies is hindered by religious and cultural practices in Saudi Arabia. This presents challenges to women working in the Saudi Arabian workforce sector, who may be aware of the legal rules that provide gender equity but at the same time there are social rules that impede gender equality. The paradox of the formal and informal forces and their impact on gender equality has been explained as follows:

“Saudi Arabia is socially conservative with regard to women’s role in society, and cultural norms and traditions play an influential role in shaping gender equality efforts in the workplace. As Saudis strongly value family roles and traditions, practices that threaten these cultural norms and structures are resisted. Diversity and equality mean that everyone should be treated equally, regardless of gender, economic status, and age. This view may be unwelcome in a country where women’s rights are often limited and where males often have more power.”

The article goes on to state: “Thus, despite government quotas, Saudi managers initially did not support the hiring of women.” In Saudi Arabia multinational companies are also required to abide by the quotas imposed by the King. The quotas are part of Saudisation, which aims to close the gender occupational gap. The purpose of these quotas is to increase female participation in the workplace. However, religious and cultural norms such as fathers or husbands retaining permission to allow women to work (under the male guardianship law), the requirement to wear religious clothing limit the effectiveness of the quotas. Although there have been significant changes in women rights in the recent times, the influence of religion is still a very strong factor in how women are able to interact with social institutions like employment. This is clear from the discussion above. However, there are also some shifts and changes in how the government responds to the issue of women rights, brought on to some degree by the feminism movement in Saudi Arabia.

A growing awareness of women’s rights and feminism is slowly shifting and challenging Islamic societies, with feminism working with the values of Islam and not against them. While traditionally, the emphasis was on early marriage for younger females with men allowed to marry more than one woman, some social benefits offered to women that are culturally satisfactory. They are detailed in the next section and include the increased representation of females in education positions.

There are still some differences between how men and women can interact in social relations and within social institutions, including the institution of employment. In general, Islamic law defines the status of women in Islamic society as social and spiritual. The religious influences that inform the status of women are found in the Quran, Hadiths, and other traditions and laws of Islamic law or the Sharia. The Sharia defines the rules relating to the interaction between women and social institutions, including employment. As discussed above, the Quran does give the men a superior position in family and decision making contexts.

Culture as a factor that influences gender inequality

Culture in Saudi Arabia is made complex by the high cultural homogeneity because of tribal and Islamic affiliations. This makes it difficult to differentiate between Islamic principles and Arabic customs. Further, as a collectivist society, group conformity is paramount in Saudi Arabia and this has implications for how the individual is situated. In the Saudi Arabian society, individuals are expected to adjust their personal aspirations to suit the social order. For example, women are generally only allowed to work if the following three conditions are satisfied: (i) care of family still remains her central focus, (ii) her work does not conflict with existing customs and religious teachings, and (iii) the job suits ideas and notions of feminine role. Culture thus plays an important role in influencing how women are situated in the Saudi Arabian society and in influencing workplace attitudes. In practice, this means women’s employment choices are largely clustered in traditional, culturally appropriate, “feminine” professions such as humanities, arts, teaching, and health care. This is despite Khadijeh, the mate of the Prophet, having her own business. In contemporary Saudi Arabia however, such examples are rare.

The impact of culture onthe roles and positions of men and women in Saudi Arabia cannot be overemphasised. Alhejji et al recently identified how cultural norms impact the way men and women interact at the workplace and determine the level of success women can achieve at the workplace. In the study women employees and managers revealed women face many issues and difficulties in working with male colleagues because not all male colleagues are willing to work with female colleagues. Such attitudes disrupt the work being completed. In the same study, a male Vice President of HR in an engineering firm explained they have difficulties in hiring female employees because the customer base is all male so they are not accepting of female employees. A female British expatriate was of the view that Saudi males in general are not comfortable working for female superiors, which is a major barrier for the career advancement of women in Saudi Arabia as there is resistance from male employees to female supervisors.

Alhejji et al’s research suggests that family businesses are the only workplaces where women have a fair chance of growing and occupying leadership positions in Saudi Arabia. This is because in other workplaces, women are usually not promoted to managerial positions because of the cultural barriers which include men not being willing to work under a female superior. Research also indicates that men’s attitudes to women in Saudi Arabian workplaces play an important role in perpetuating gender equality in the workplace. Saudi males generally have traditional attitudes towards working females. The men believe that they are “dominant, independent, competitive and capable of leadership and women are submissive, dependent, caring and good for domestic tasks and child rearing.”

Gender equality in the work place is also significantly impacted by the tribe, clan, and family name in Saudi Arabia. These are important concepts in Saudi Arabia, and much of the culture is also shaped or driven by them. The tribe or clan that the women belong to are important factors in determining how they are involved in the working or professional life because the clan and tribe shapes the men’s attitudes towards women in general and their female colleagues in particular.

Also significant in driving male colleagues is their own marital status. Research indicates that a man’s marital status influences his attitudes towards female colleagues. Single Saudi males may have less traditional attitudes towards working females as compared to the more traditional attitudes generally depicted by married men. Married men may have more traditional attitudes to female role as being predominantly that of caregiver, while unmarried men may be more flexible and openminded to non-traditional roles of women where they are comfortable with women working in firms and also being given managerial positions.

Due to the traditional cultural approaches to women working in the same environment as men, some commentators suggest that multinational companies should not try to transfer their home-country policies on gender equality into Saudi Arabian work environment but should adapt their policies to the national culture and context of Saudi Arabia.

Law as a factor that influences gender inequality

The legal position of Saudi Arabian on gender equality in the workplace is closely interlinked with religious and cultural factors. The 1992 Basic Law of Saudi Arabia derives its legitimacy from the interpretation of Sharia. The 1992 Basic Law is constitutional in nature as it contains the system of governance, powers and duties of the government, and rights of citizens. At the outset, the Basic Law of Governance states that the Quran and Sunna (sayings and traditions of the Prophet) are the constitution. This means that religion is central to Saudi law and impacts the rights and duties of the government and citizens. Article 8 of the Basic Law states that the system of governance in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on justice, consultation and equality according to the Islamic Sharia.

Thus, law in Saudi Arabia is greatly influenced by the Islamic law contained in the Sharia. In Saudi Arabia, formal institutions that impact gender equality in workplaces include laws, regulatory frameworks, court systems, and written contracts. These formal institutions issue regulations, laws, and sanctions that have been enacted by the government of Saudi Arabia to govern different areas. Labour laws and relations between employers and employees are governed by these formal institutions; even the multinational corporations in Saudi Arabia are supposed to implement them, even if they are not the same as those in the home countries of the multinational corporations.

Tellingly, the labour law in Saudi Arabia is deeply impacted by informal institutions, including the culture, traditions and religious norms of the country. These factors have embedded gender inequality, making it difficult to change, even with the implementation of laws and policy. The previous two sections of this chapter have already delved in the issues and difficulties faced by women in Saudi Arabian workforce. Even if the law has mandated the inclusion of women in certain sectors, resistance to such inclusion is a major hinderance for the inclusion and promotion of women in the workplace. Therefore, any understanding of how laws are made in Saudi Arabia to counter gender inequality in the workplace, have also to take into consideration how informal institutions like culture and religion may come in the way of implementation of such laws.

In Saudi Arabia, the government has implemented through the formal institutions a policy called “Saudisation”, which contains localisation policy and gender equality initiatives. A study conducted in a multinational corporation in Saudi Arabia found that despite the application of the initiatives of Saudisation and gender equality initiatives, the corporation found it challenging to effectively implement diversity and inclusion strategy across the entire organisation because despite the formal institutions making such initiatives necessary, the informal institutions such as cultural norms and traditions made it difficult to actually implement these initiatives across the organisation. Due to the strong impact of the informal institutions, even managers and business leaders have not been able to successfully implement gender equality initiatives to the fullest.

Recently, Saudi Arabian government passed a new initiative with regard to women rights at workplace. The Directives by the Ministry for Labour and Social Development have been issued to enforce these regulations that are made to ensurea suitable environment for women to work. The Directives also provide for equal pay for equal work and makes other rules with regard to workplace conditions, such as, at least two women on shifts where men are also working and working hours to not extend beyond 11pm. Importantly, the Directive requires that gender pay parity is maintained by the employers so that there is no discrimination between men and women with regard to the pay. Therefore, there is a ban on discrimination on the point of pay for equal value of work. This is an important part of the directive as pay parity has become a significant issue with regard to gender equality at workplace.

Law in Saudi Arabia can clearly not be separated from the Sharia principles, which impact all parts of the law and policy in Saudi Arabia. The Sharia itself does not conceptualise gender equality to mean that both genders have to be treated similarly, rather, the focus is on the treatment of genders according to their biological basis. This is very different from the approach taken in the international law, where gender equality in the workplace has been treated as equal treatment of both genders at workplace as can be seen in the ABC of Women Workers' Rights and Gender Equality by the International Labor Organisation. The ABC of Women Workers' Rights and Gender Equality uses gender- inclusive language in its guidance to maintaining of gender equality at workplace. As per the International Labour Organisation, gender equality has to be supported through labour standards, pay equity, structures, and social dialogue. Clearly, international rules have become gender neutral to a great extent in how they conceptualise gender equality at the workplace, unlike the Sharia law which does not think of gender equality as actual equal treatment of people belonging to both genders at the workplace.

This is not to say that the Sharia does not call for gender equality, it merely means that gender equality in Sharia has a different conceptualisation. The Sharia does consider that both genders are equal concerning citizenship. Labour law in Saudi Arabia, which is influenced by the Sharia law does base itself to some extent on the biological basis of gender, as per which while both genders can work in different types of work, women do have certain physical and psychological needs that differ from men, such as pregnancy and childbirth, for which law has to respond differently to women as compared to how it responds to men. This is just a way for safeguarding certain rights of women arising from their different physical and psychological needs.

Law has responded to some of the specific areas of gender equality at workplace in Saudi Arabia, while it has not been able to respond to some other important areas that are part of gender equality. Saudi Arabia is among those Arab states, including Egypt and Morocco, where laws have been enacted to ensure equal rights between men and women in the labour market, including equal pay for equal work. Unfortunately, there are still some areas in labour law, which need to be responded to as these areas continue to pose difficulties for women in their access to formal work. In particular, there is a need to respond to maternity leave and gender discrimination and harassment in the workplace. As per the international rules, particularly under the International Labour Organisation, a minimum of 14 weeks maternity leave is to be given by the employer to the female employees after childbirth; however, the fact that employer has to bear the cost of the paid maternity leave has meant that many employers refuse to employ women of childbearing age for fear of having to pay for maternity leave.

Harassment and discrimination at workplace are real and serious impediments for women at workplace. The following paragraph indicates how gender discrimination and harassment is responded to, or the lack of legal responses or implementation in many Arab countries:

“The equal pay provisions that exist in the region remain largely unenforced and undermined in practice. Inequalities in non-wage benefits, such as pension schemes, housing allowances and child subsidies remain largely unaddressed. Women also rarely have the same rights as men to pass on their pension benefits to their families ... Moreover, the phenomenon of violence and sexual harassment against women at the workplace remains a pervasive problem in many Arab countries, with a shortage of national and international legislation to address this serious rights violation.”

Therefore, the problems may not lie in the lack of laws, but also in the implementation of the laws relating to gender equality at workplace. The problems with implementation of gender equality at workplace may arise out of the interactions between the formal and informal institutions. Social norms, culture and the Sharia law play a very important role in this context. While laws are being made to respond to the issue of gender equality ay workplace, there is still much to be done for better implementation of these laws. Although new directives are also in place to ensure gender equality, it is still to be seen how far these directives will be successful in their objective.

Social issues and history as factors that influence gender inequality

The most relevant social issues and historical factors that come in the way of achieving gender equality in Saudi Arabia are related to the historical and social notions about womanhood, typifying of roles of women and men in the society and within the family, and the segregation of women and men in social lives.

Historically, women in Saudi Arabia have been excluded from the social institutions like employment. The historical socio-economic and political factors can be considered to understand the position of women in the Saudi society, and how that impacts their prospects in the workplace. However, with the establishment of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), and the incoming of American expats to work in Saudi Arabia, women in Saudi Arabia began to demand change in status. This is so because Saudi Arabian women could compare themselves with their American counterparts who freely worked, travelled, drove cars, while Saudi Arabian women were restricted in many of these activities due to social and cultural factors.

Saudi Arabian women around the 1970s, began to demand more rights in their social and political lives. However, due to different political and social factors, these changes in women status did not come to be. The difference in approaches to men and women in the Saudi society can be gauged from the fact that until 2002, education for girls and boys was regulated by different authorities in Saudi Arabia. Girls education at all levels, fell under the Department of Religious Guidance, while boys schooling and education fell under the Ministry of Education. The different approaches were followed to “ensure that women’s education did not deviate from the original purpose of female education, which was to make women good wives and mothers, and to prepare them for ‘acceptable’ jobs such as teaching and nursing that were believed to suit their nature.” Although approaches changed after 2002, with girls education also coming under Ministry of Education, the historically maintained differences between men and women run deep and are clearly influential in driving women’s experiences in the workplaces.

Social norms, behaviours, and attitudes are informal institutions that have a significant influence on how women are perceived within the workplaces. For instance, social norms in Saudi Arabia are traditional and women and men are not encouraged to mix with each other socially unless they are related to each other. This has an impact on how women interact with men in workplaces. As most of the workplaces are already male dominated, women would find it very difficult to adjust to the male dominated environs of the workplaces. Men too have difficulty accepting women as colleagues or as their superiors in the workplace. Gender segregation is a very important social norm in Saudi Arabia due to which women find it difficult to achieve success in workplaces that also have men employees. Women prefer to work in separate spaces as they would be constricted in a mixed gender environment due to their inability to remove their religious attire in such an environment.

Men too may adopt uncooperative strategies and delay works involving women employees as they may not like to work with women. This is a major hinderance in the women’s personal development at the workplace because HR managers may see the social issues involving women employees to be limitations of the women employees rather than the limitations of the wider social environment, which restricts women from being completely free in a mixed work environment. Rather than considering these social conditions as being restrictive for the women themselves, HR managers think of women employees are being burdensome.

Another social and historical factor that comes in the way of women employees achieving success at their workplace is that of subordination to their male relatives. In Saudi Arabia, women need permission from their nearest male relative for working and travelling. Work that involves travelling may therefore become severely restrictive in access for women as managers may think that the permission requirement for women employees becomes a problem when women have to travel for work. Therefore, managers may not consider women employees for work that involves travelling on a regular basis. This may also have implications for promotions of women employees as managers may not consider them for promotions due to the many restrictions on their work and travel.

Research also indicates that the experiences of Saudi women at workplace cannot be homogenised because there are intersectional factors of class and gender that are also at play. For instance, one research study suggests that equal work opportunities for women at workplace is impacted by a mix of intersectional factors like social class, family status and other dimensions of individual identity. Women who are from a higher social class or from a higher family status will not have the same experiences as women from lower social classes or women from families with lower social status. This study highlights the role of individual factors at play with respect to how different women experience gender equality at workplace.

The significance of the segregation norms can be gauged from the fact that the government of Saudi Arabia maintains a close check on workplaces to ensure that the norm is being followed through a Commission run by the religious police. The Commission is responsible for ‘Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice’. This Commission monitors workplaces to ensure that the sex segregation norms are being implemented in all the workplaces other than hospitals. Tribal laws are also implemented by the religious police. It may be mentioned that the law and social practices are sometimes conflicted in Saudi Arabia so that while the law of the land may require implementation of gender equality, the social practices may not allow the complete implementation of such laws. For instance, Article 28 of the Basic Law of Governance clearly calls for state to provide job opportunities to all able-bodied people and shall enact laws to protect both the employee and the employer, which may be taken to mean that able-bodied women too should be provided and ensured employment by the state, it is not necessary that this is reflected in the actual numbers of working women in Saudi Arabia, which has some of the least employment rates for women.

The status of women in Islamic societies is ultimately affected by the religion and its interpretation by the Islamic scholars. Detailed discussion on this point is already done at the beginning of this chapter. To reiterate the points made there with an emphasis on the historical contexts of status of women in Islamic societies like Saudi Arabia, one final point may be made. Islamic religion, in its early period, made some differences between the position of men and women, especially with respect to rights related to matrimony, inheritance, and social relations in Islamic society. It must be remembered that there are specific norm giving authorities in Islam, the foremost of which is the Quran, which is the absolute authority in Islam; however, how the norms are laid down in Quran depends on the interpretation of Quran. In the context of interpretation as well, there are some complications because interpretation of Quran would also include some aspects like how Quran is properly to be interpreted and correctly applied, and in what ways is the Quran norm giving. These are complex questions to which there are no universally accepted answers within the Islamic religious scholarship.

Summary and conclusion

This chapter has discussed the principal factors that impact gender equality at workplace. It may be said that the most important factors are of social, cultural and religious nature. These informal institutions are so powerful that even law has not been able to drive necessary changes in the workplaces. Legal provisions do call for gender equality, but social norms and practices, as well as religious norms are not as yet completely aligned to the ideal of this equality. Religion and social practices are still impediments to achieving gender equality at workplace because these lead to gender segregation, male guardianship and other social practices that come in the way for women to truly achieve success and promotions in their workplaces.

In the next chapter, working women and their rights in the workplace in the Middle East, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are discussed in comparison with Saudi Arabia. The comparison will seek to draw out the similarities and differences between these countries and Saudi Arabia. These are also Arab countries and their experiences with gender equality at workplace can be useful for understanding how far religion and social practices influence gender equality in these countries as well.

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