Saudi Activist Calls For The End Of Male Authority Over Women

Saudi women seem to be getting bolder. At least some of them. Perhaps it's because King Abdullah is becoming a little more progressive in his outlooks that women are feeling more courageous in terms of demanding more freedom for their highly restricted lives over there. Of course, they are causing the usual firestorm of criticism from the men for a culture that feels the need to dominate its women, bat least they are speaking out.

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Wajeeha Alhuwaider, a women's rights activist, actually was brave enough to ask that Saudi leaders rid the country of all the laws that give males authority over females. Her statement published on the Al Jazeera website, also mentioned the fact that her demands were not very well taken, which isn't surprising since she is quite used to controversy.

Another request by the same activist, directed at American President Barak Obama, before meeting with the Saudi monarch in June, contributed to firing up the debate. In the most recent request, the Saudi activist described women in her country who are forced to cover their body as birds covered by the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

These birds can barely walk and consequently, continued Alhuwaider, they do not have control over their lives.

Then you have women like Amira Salem, a journalist and Islamic activist and polar opposite to Alhuwaider, who obviously seems perfectly content to be like an oil-drenched bird, which is odd and somewhat disturbing, but her choice.

Speaking with Al Jazeera, Amira Salem said that ''the requests are an extension of the American strategy that is focussed on the rights of Saudi women. Riyadh is under constant pressure from the Americans,'' continued Salem, ''to implement reforms starting with women''.

Then we have commentary from the male perspective:

''There is an enormous project of Westernisation, based on the issue of Saudi women,'' commented Islamic writer Ibraheem Assakran, who added that they are strongly insisting to put an end to Sharia law regarding women, which are in conflict with the West. ''They want,'' added Assakran, ''women and men to see each other and become friends like in the West.''

There's something wrong with men and women becoming friends? I find that mindset so so incredibly bizarre. Some of my best friends are male, and it has enriched my life in so many ways. And the best marriages are based on friendships first. I guess not in Islam.

There are some men, including clerics, who are for giving women more rights and doing away with some of the more archaic laws that often have no basis in Islam, but they are few and far between and when you have people like Salem and Assakran who both seem to cherish the roles of submissive female and dominant male, then change is a long way from taking place.

It's too bad that they have to put everything in terms of Islam versus the West, because it's that mentality that causes the huge rift between us all. How can we ever hope to get along with that kind of thinking.