Queens of the Kingdom

The Women of Saudi Arabia Speak

Nicola Sutcliff

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781471179679
• eBook ISBN: 9781471179686
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

' Queens of the Kingdom is an effective counterpoint to the popular depiction of Saudi women as oppressed victims. Its subjects have very different views on what life should look like in their country, but all voice a fierce pride in their agency and identity. The book fulfils the desire expressed at one point by filmmaker Amani, "to tell people that [Saudi women] are strong, that they're human.".' Times Literary Supplement 'This magnificent book gives the perspective of 30 women in the kingdom. From global activism to marrying strangers in exchange for an education, this is the reality many Saudiwomen face....Mingled in between the strict rules and closed families are women who are finding their voices and prepared to break barriers for the future.' Sunday Times ( South Africa) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most mysterious and secretive societies in modern times and the lives of the women living there is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of all. What do the women of Saudi Arabia really think about their lives? What are their hopes and dreams? To separate fact from fiction, Nicola Sutcliff spent four years living in the Kingdom, meeting and interviewing women of all ages and from all walks of life. Their stories are presented here and paint a portrait of a country that appears to be on the cusp of change. Meet Hafsa, a Bedouin who gave birth to eleven children in the open desert; Jamila, the first wife in a polygamous household; Aya, a medical student who married a stranger in order pursue her education. Meet these and many others and discover what they think about subjects as diverse as education, driving, the religious police, male guardianship, social media, women's rights, love, marriage, underground parties, under-the-abaya fashion and sexuality. Authentic, eye-opening, inspiring and courageous, this candid collection of essays captures the essence of what it is like to be a woman living in Saudi Arabia today.

LIFE ON THE EDGE

‘I’ll call you back, the madam is coming’

—Sudanese housemaid

The women of Saudi Arabia have been the topic of much media rumour and intrigue over recent decades. But what has drawn less attention is that not all women in the Kingdom are Saudi. According to official statistics, more than a third of the country’s 33 million inhabitants are non-nationals. Some come to work; others are born and raised in Saudi society. Few will ever truly call it home.

From the early days of the Kingdom, as the young country worked to regularise state machinery and its citizenry, there have been tales of civil servants offering passport appointments to people on the streets. The only conditions being that the applicants, or their fathers, had lived on the peninsula since before 1932. Later, as oil wealth flowed into the country, so did migrants, and as a Saudi passport rapidly became a much more desirable document, the door to citizenship swung firmly shut.

Naturalisation can now only be achieved through a points system, and applications are reviewed on an individual basis by the Ministry of Interior. In order to qualify for consideration, candidates must have spent a minimum of ten years in the country and have converted to Islam. Points are then awarded for level of education, number of years spent in the Kingdom, and heritage. A Saudi father earns you three points; a Saudi mother, only two.

The huge social value attributed to the paternal line means that for one section of society, even being born of a Saudi womb is no guarantee of a homeland. Increased participation in international scholarships and in the workplace has led to a new phenomenon: Saudi women who take foreign husbands. It is reported that the number of women with non-Saudi spouses now sits at close to three quarters of a million.

But before a ‘mixed’ marriage can be approved, the bride must sign a document acknowledging that the children born of this union will not have an automatic right to Saudi citizenship. This means that should a mother die, her children’s right to remain in the land of their birth is no longer guaranteed.

‘A Saudi woman can’t marry a non-Saudi man until she’s twenty-five – not without a lot of bureaucracy and going through the courts. I find it so insulting; the idea is, once you’re over twenty-five, you’ve clearly been left on the shelf, so you can’t have the privilege of marrying a Saudi man.’

—MALAK, student

Even as adults, these individuals must maintain a sponsor and a valid residency visa, like any other foreign worker. They will not automatically receive the paid university education, international scholarships or positive employment discrimination afforded to their maternal cousins.

The arguments against recognising these children as Saudi nationals are rarely consistent. Some claim the divided loyalties of such children pose a threat to national security; others that they will create competition in the labour market; it has even been posited that these individuals – and not the millions of foreign workers that the country relies upon – will place an unbearable strain on the Kingdom’s water supplies.

Women who have been affected by the legislation have been quick to point out that no such panic seems to ensue when a man chooses a foreign bride. If born in the country, the offspring of these marriages are granted Saudi citizenship at birth.

The root of the objection, then, might more honestly be found in a sense of betrayal that women are choosing partners from outside the fold, and a fear that the time-honoured Saudi custom of tracing one’s tribal ancestry through the paternal line may ultimately be laid to rest.

The debate has roared over social media for several years, bringing it into the mainstream consciousness and prompting many sympathisers, both female and male, to push for a more equal system. In 2017, the Shura Council finally agreed to review the issue; current proposals look towards granting nationality to such children, once they turn eighteen.

In addition to easing the struggles faced by those individuals who find themselves foreigners in their own land, such a change would also go a long way to proving what the state insists is already true: that women’s citizenship holds just as much weight as a man’s.

For other women born in the Kingdom, any form of citizenship is still a distant dream.

In every Saudi city, women like Maram (see here) hide in plain sight. They work, without papers, as cooks and cleaners, or set up stalls on the edges of souqs selling home-cooked meals and offering ornate henna tattoos. Like undocumented migrants in many countries, these women inhabit an underprivileged sector of society which largely survives hand to mouth.

Their poverty and vulnerability is magnified by their lack of access to basic services. Without passports or residency visas, obtaining medical care, opening a bank account or even purchasing a mobile phone become near-impossible tasks.

In theory, all children between the ages of six and sixteen have guaranteed access to schooling. In reality, illiteracy and fear of the authorities prevent many mothers like Maram from taking the steps necessary to enrol their children, perpetuating the cycle to which they have fallen victim. It is the same fear that prevents such women from integrating socially.

‘My husband is a lawyer, you know, but he’s had clients ask him where his employer is. We’re Indian originally, and they just assume he’s the driver.’

—KHULOUD, housewife

Saudis often express pride in the fact that their culture and their faith do not discriminate against race and nationality. But moving through Saudi society, it is hard not to notice the lines of a caste-like hierarchy, with Saudis at the top, skilled Western workers in the middle, and Asian and African immigrants, like Maram, undeniably at the bottom of the chain.

‘I’m sorry, it’s not much; I haven’t had a maid for a month,’ says teacher Huda apologetically as she serves lunch at her home. Casual references to domestic workers pepper women’s conversations. ‘This one’s new,’ says student Dalal, her maid still in earshot. ‘We had to take her; the neighbours didn’t want her any more and no one knew what to do with her.’

In the period 2015–17, Saudi Arabia issued more than 3 million visas for foreign ‘house help’. A sizeable proportion of these were for men to be employed as private drivers. It is a role that few Saudi men aspire to, and in any case the huge importance attributed to privacy and reputation means most women simply refuse to be driven by a local man who may know her family, or gossip about where she goes and who she’s seeing.

As a consequence, Saudi Arabia is currently home to some 800,000 foreign drivers, mostly of Indian or Pakistani origin. With the removal of the female driving ban, this number is set to decline, although some women will certainly opt to retain their services.

But other household workers – maids, cooks, nannies and cleaners – remain in high demand (it is estimated that 89 per cent of Saudi households employ at least one housemaid), and these professions are, almost exclusively, female.

Saudis have a long history of depending on imported domestic labour. Slavery was not formally abolished in the Kingdom until 1962; until then, keeping slaves of African descent was not uncommon in middle- and upper-class households. After the law was changed, all former slaves were offered full Saudi citizenship, and many adopted the tribal names of the families they had served.

‘Yes, my grandparents had slaves; it was a different time. But slavery wasn’t like what you’ve seen in Roots! Some slaves would breastfeed members of the household, just like mothers, and they would live with them like sisters; they were very much a part of the families they lived in.’

—SUHAILA, philanthropist

But it would appear that the ties between master and servant have never truly been severed. As wealth from the exploitation of oil reserves found its way into household incomes, families were able to replace slaves with paid, imported labour.

For women with broods of ten or more children, and husbands who don’t traditionally contribute to household chores, the employment of domestic help came to be understood more as a necessity than a luxury. Today, homes are constructed with ‘maid’s quarters’ as a standard feature.

The majority of housemaids are sourced from Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. These women usually come from economically insecure backgrounds and are often the sole breadwinners of their families. ‘I came after my husband died,’ says one of Rosamie’s colleagues. ‘I have three kids; they live with my mum now.’

Women are enticed into positions in Saudi Arabia by agencies in their home countries who offer attractive salaries and a range of benefits, some of which invariably fail to materialise. They are often not qualified for the roles in childcare or cooking to which they are assigned, or prepared for life in a culture that is completely alien to them.

On arrival at the airport, they will pass under the custody of their new employer, their sponsor, who, in the absence of their fathers and husbands, will act as their guardian. What kind of sponsor they will be signed to they have no way of knowing until they are already on Saudi soil.

There are those who undoubtedly live very well in their new homes. Each morning, Norah, a young princess in the capital, stretches and yawns in her polka-dot pyjamas before embracing her maid Marisol in a vice-like bear hug and kissing her face. In student Qamar’s house, maid Mini twirls around guests in a ‘Tequila is my spirit animal’ T-shirt as she serves coffee, singing and demanding kisses and selfies from her bemused but amiable employers.

When placements are happy, domest...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Glossary
• An Introduction
• The Villager
• The Bedouin
• The Princess
• The Mountain Woman
• Kingdom Come
• The Muttawah
• The Designer
• The Journalist
• The Runaway
• A Women Apart
• The Teacher
• The Gentleman
• The Rebel
• The First Wife
• Affairs of the Heart
• The Doctor
• The Security Guard
• The Footballer
• The Housewife
• Health Matters
• The Student
• The Engineer
• The Businesswoman
• The Shopgirl
• Women’s Work
• The Advocate
• The Prisoner
• The Politician
• Voices Unsilenced
• The Instagram Queen
• The Model
• The Filmmaker
• Popular Culture 2.0
• The Henna Artist
• The Cleaner
• The Expat
• Life on the Edge
• Acknowledgements
• Sources
• Copyright