Fundamentos psicoacústicos

In Saudi Arabia, the status of women has been controversial for a long time. In the literature, there are mainly two positions; one sees the country as almost a state of oppression in regarding to women's rights (Mtango, 2004; Coleman, 2004,; Sowayan, 2007) and one sees that women as they are enjoying most of their rights in the country (SAMEX, n.d.). Few authors took an in-between position. Fatany (2004) said, “… we Saudis admit that the status of women in our country has not been what we would have desired…” However she says that “…we cannot agree with the idea that Saudi women are underprivileged and oppressed.” That’s not to say there are no instances of abused women in Saudi Arabia; indeed, there are abuses just as there are all over the world.

Part of the controversy about the status of women in Saudi Arabia can be referred to the conflicting references for such evaluation. That’s to say, in most of the international literature, most of the authors evaluate the status of women in Saudi Arabia according to the international human right standards. However, the Saudi government claims to evaluate it according to the Islamic standards. In his book, International Human Rights and Islamic Law, Baderin (2003) critiques international human rights law, arguing that it is excessively “Western” and offensive to Muslims’ beliefs in several areas. However, he sees that it is possible to bring the two laws nearer to each others through the adoption of the 'margin of appreciation' doctrine by international human rights treaty bodies and the utilization of the Islamic law doctrines of 'maqasid al-shari'ah' (the overall objective of the Islamic law) and 'maslahah' (welfare) by Muslim countries in their interpretation and application of Islamic law. Accordingly, Baderin

asserts that the Islamic law can help in enforcing the international human rights law in the Muslim world.

As to the segregation of genders, it is an important aspect that profoundly influences every aspect of public and social lives in Saudi Arabia. Gender segregation is a general rule that applies in different areas such as in education, banking, and access to public transportation and job opportunities. It also applies to some hospitals, libraries, and shopping centers. The practice of segregation and confining women to their own company is an institutional mechanism designed to protect women’s chastity and to prevent other men from encroaching on the male honor of the family (Al-Munajjed, 1997). However, the application mechanism of such segregation by the Saudi government is criticized in many published literature (Erturk, 1991; Mtango, 2004;

Vidyasagar & Rea, 2004). Having said that, it is important to admit that Saudi Arabia is not the Islam and the Islam is not Saudi Arabia. Mtango (2004) and others has mentioned that the laws in Saudi Arabia are not an accurate representation of the Islamic law. For example, the Saudi government claims evaluating women rights according to the Islamic standards (as mentioned above), but indeed the sources of the Islamic law do not necessarily support the exact understanding of the law that Saudi government applies.

Generally, as it is the case in all Muslim cultures, in Saudi Arabia wives are expected to give full commitments to making family homes while husbands to give full commitment to providing for their families. However, the role of women in the Saudi society is not confined to home-making. Indeed, the development of Saudi Arabia has

brought with it increasing opportunities for women in both education and employment (SAMEX, n.d.). For example, in 1960 the government undertook the introduction of a national education program for girls. By the mid-1970s, about half of all Saudi girls were attending school. Five years later, education was available to all Saudi girls (ibid).

In terms of employment, Saudi woman today plays an active role in teaching, medicine, social work and broadcasting (Ministry of education, 2005). Moreover, Saudi women recently were given opportunities to be active in several civil institutions such as the National Human Rights Association that promotes women’s rights and contributes to social justice. Members of the committee say that the association will be permitted to seek explanations on decisions related to women’s legal rights (Fatany, 2004). Another important development is the participation of women in the National Dialogues that were encouraged by the government in order to foster the idea of dialogue that has been missing from the Saudi society. The expansion of the woman's participation in expressing her opinion and in participating in the public matters based on the Islamic regulations was among the recommendations made by the 2nd National Dialogue Forum held in 2003 (King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue, 2003) . The 3rd National Dialogue Forum held in 2004 gathered 70 male/female thinkers and researchers to discuss women’s rights and duties. The meeting lifted a virtual ban or taboo that has existed for years about discussing women’s issues. It conveyed a message that both men and women are partners in reform (King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue, 2004).

Despite the efforts spent by the Saudi government on improving the status of woman, women participation in the public domain is still very limited when compared to

men participation. The Islamic law (on which the Saudi law is based) gives women the right to participate in the domain of public affairs (Badawi, 2002), but women in Saudi Arabia are not given the participation chances they deserve (Erturk, 1991; Vidyasagar &

Rea, 2004). For example, women were excluded completely from the very first municipal elections carried out in 2005. Al-Habib (2005) has mentioned that such exclusion was due to procedural/technical reasons and wasn’t due to governmental regulations. He mentioned some of those procedural and technical reasons such as the need for training women to operate the female side of the election as well as the need for preparing about 600 locations for them while the time was short for such preparations.

Al-Ahmed (2005) argues that in Afghanistan - a poor nation – 40% of the voters were women. So it cannot be claimed that Saudi Arabia is being less technically proficient than Afghanistan!

Women in Saudi Arabia are also excluded from the councils of the cooperative citizens that some of the municipality branches organize. Such councils are formed to seek citizens’ help in overcoming the municipal service shortcomings (Jeddah's Main Municipality, 2004). As a result of excluding women from such councils, women can not have their voices been effectively heard by the local municipalities. What makes the case worse is that there are no other efficient means or channels appropriate for women participation in the local affairs of their communities. Indeed, the absence of an appropriate channel of communication between the female community residents and the male municipality officials is a distinguished problem at the Saudi residential community level. This will be further explained later.

Women exclusion from participating in many life domains in Saudi Arabia was referred to the local traditions and norms by Abu-khalid (2004). Based on a survey carried out in a study by Abu-khalid, 86% of the female participants and 68% of the male participants believe that the local traditions and norms are the reason that disrupts women participation in pubic life.

In an interviews held by Al-Ramlawi and Al-Miflih (2004), a number of Saudi working women (from various professions) mentioned several public domains where they like to participate at. The mentioned public domains were the community’s recreational facilities, community’s female commercial facilities (e.g. tailoring and hair styling shops), community beautification, cleaning, security, and health.