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Eight Things You Experience After Leaving Saudi Arabia?!?!

S

Smart_Guy

...
Premium Member
This article mentions stuff men and women notice if they lived in Saudi Arabia for a while then leave to another country:

8 Things You Experience After Leaving Saudi Arabia

I personally at least this this part could be true:

"You are constantly on the search for that perfect shawarma sandwich
It's one of those things you only appreciate after you don't have it anymore. You keep craving it but nothing seems to compare to the delicious shawarma you're used to. And having those french fries inside..well you will have a hard time finding that added touch! "

;)
 
icehorse

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
I can appreciate the good humor here. I cannot be comfortable pretending that life is good for most SA women. The implication is that life in SA is good for women, and I think that is not the case.
 
S

Smart_Guy

...
Premium Member
I don't think it necessarily intends to imply such things. But I'm sure that at least there are so many among people who feel comfortable here (even if most don't) since we cannot speak for others and that not all people are just like you or me in preferences (including both men and women). I think saying other than that would be imposing on them. Still, it is not that I'm saying it is or it isn't comfortable.

Is the article specific for women? I know it is on a women's website, but I don't think that means it is women specific. Women don't drive here to consider the specific subject driving point at hand a bother to women, men also pay for petrol and don't pay taxes, not only women wait in lines, men too eat shawurma, etc.
 
Kirran

Kirran

ॐ
Premium Member
Well, we seem to be going all women's-rights-in-KSA up in here, so I'll weigh in. The article is very much from a woman's perspective, with a fair few of the points specific to women.

R.e. women being comfortable in Saudi Arabia, sure, I'm sure there are many. Humans are very adaptable. There were also many African-Americans who were comfortable with their life in the USA in the 1910s. Plenty of Dalits comfortable with life in rural India. Etc. Doesn't mean they are not suffering oppression. Women were among the lead opponents to the women's suffrage movement!
 
Godobeyer

Godobeyer

the word "Islam" means "submission" to God
Premium Member
icehorse said:
I can appreciate the good humor here. I cannot be comfortable pretending that life is good for most SA women. The implication is that life in SA is good for women, and I think that is not the case.
Click to expand...
In Saudi Arabia,the woman can't drive,but she could had car with driver :D

In most Islam views, it's forbiden for woman to be alone with man !

So it's better for women to drive than to be with strange man alone!
 
S

Smart_Guy

...
Premium Member
Kirran said:
Why not? Can't vote, segregated, under severe restrictions to which the dominant demographic are not subject.
Click to expand...

Even with that answer I'm still so puzzled and amazed that you compared them really. It is not like we have something we can vote for that makes a difference or that men are not segregated too!

Hmm... really strange... but I understand. You don't know how it really is here after all. Not experiencing personally can be negative, specially if coupled with only what we hear on the media.

It's okay, I understand ;)
 
Kirran

Kirran

ॐ
Premium Member
Smart_Guy said:
Even with that answer I'm still so puzzled and amazed that you compared them really. It is not like we have something we can vote for that makes a difference or that men are not segregated too!

Hmm... really strange... but I understand. You don't know how it really is here after all. Not experiencing personally can be negative, specially if coupled with only what we hear on the media.

It's okay, I understand ;)
Click to expand...

Brushing past the condescension, the fact that the vote which is given to men (who outwardly follow the state religion) is not of particular import hardly makes it better that women don't have it. Nor does it say anything regarding the myriad other restrictions.

Imagine that people of a certain ethnic background were subject to the same restrictions as women are in KSA. It would be considered the worst apartheid state in the world. But when it's well-established institutional misogyny we turn a blind eye.
 
S

Smart_Guy

...
Premium Member
Kirran said:
Brushing past the condescension, the fact that the vote which is given to men (who outwardly follow the state religion) is not of particular import hardly makes it better that women don't have it. Nor does it say anything regarding the myriad other restrictions.

Imagine that people of a certain ethnic background were subject to the same restrictions as women are in KSA. It would be considered the worst apartheid state in the world. But when it's well-established institutional misogyny we turn a blind eye.
Click to expand...

Where did you get that women can't vote anyway? I could us the information fro later.

Different ethnic ground is different than being a man or a woman too. Oranges and apples again, just like African Americans in the past and women. And I repeat, as women have their stuff here, men do too. Or is sexism considered only against women and not men? (is that reverse misogyny?) You don't know how it is really here as you never experienced it, trust me. No one known everything to judge others, you know. If I'm not mistaken, women have their similar share in Hinduism too, but I could be wrong.

But anyway, one shouldn't look at other cultures like they look at their own. Just because one does not like other practices, it does not mean that those practices are wrong and done for no reason.

It is not like I'm defending this place in this anyway. But to compare our women to African Americans in USA's past is not right and I can't accept it.

I really prefer sticking to the article. I don't have anything to do with its content, the author does.
 
Kirran

Kirran

ॐ
Premium Member
We could get really into this, but this may not be the place for it. I stand by my judgement, but unless people wanna make a dedicated thread for it let's let it lie for now!

Thanks for the discussion, @Smart_Guy
 
Sha'irullah

Sha'irullah

رسول الآلهة
I have always been fascinated by Saudi Arabia, it sounds so wonderful. As for the women issue, I don't care as I already hold my opinions about women and I will admit Saudi Arabia in some regards does better with them then we do in the US if not better
 
Sha'irullah

Sha'irullah

رسول الآلهة
Forgot to mention I laughed about the scwarma sandwich :D. Telling a vegan they could possibly miss scwarma is laughable in my view. I nearly choked eating prime rib once, awful bovine abomination
 
Debater Slayer

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
I have two female friends who used to live in Saudi Arabia who I regularly talk to, and both of them have told me that they felt strong restriction when they were there. Women are indeed treated as second-class citizens in KSA unless they fit into tight boxes of social expectations and norms.

One of them who felt particularly restricted lived there for fourteen years, so she obviously knows what life is like there. And I also know what she said is true because I spent nineteen years there myself. :D

A lot of the problems within Saudi culture are, in my opinion, actually more insidious than the media portrays them as, because while many media outlets focus on hyperbolic claims like "People are beheaded in public" as if they were common occurrences, the reality is that things like misogyny, homophobia, and religious bigotry are so normalized in Saudi culture that they aren't even shocking there. The average Joe's acceptance of such things is more problematic than merely having a clear-cut "villain"/villainous figure who you can just dismiss as an odd duck.

The part about the shawarma sandwich is true, though. Can't deny that.
 
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