Coming to Saudi Arabia: The world's first women-only city

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Saudi Arabia is so culturally different, that it is hard for me to grasp what it is like.

From reading the article, this is not really a "female only" city like the title implies, but rather designated female work districts within the city. Their culture dictates that men and women should not work together, so I am assuming that current work areas are "men only" which up until this idea has left women out of the work force.

I am sure as soon as there is a fire or an emergency in the women's work area, the men will come to the rescue.

If this is mutual and gives both genders a benefit (perhaps enabling the wife to work is a good thing) then I don't see what the problem is. if it is something that gives women an extra benefit or takes away from men, then I wont support it.

It is my understanding that in Saudi Arabia women have limitations, but also benefits so things seem to balance out. The best gage of measurement, in my opinion, is if Saudi's are generally happy, and healthy families are forming. If the formation of families gets disrupted by one gender having more power than the other, then there's a problem. Perhaps I am wrong, but I am under the impression that Saudi's are generally happy people with traditional families and low divorce rate. So if having segregated work districts makes them all happy, then I have no problem.

Note: alright, so I type this all out, and just before I post, I decide to look up Saudi's divorce rate....62%! the second highest in the world. So I guess much of what I typed above about healthy families is not so. I wonder if more women going to work and having designated distrcts is going to help or hurt?

Separate but equal. lol

In the context of Saudi culture, this makes sense. The Saudis have separate "family sections" for families, to which a single man cannot gain entrance. So, too, they have separate days for men and women to attend the zoo. And women can work, but only in certain occupations. They do hire female nurses, for example, that work with doctors--but they're almost all foreign, rarely Saudi.

Of course, understand why they do this: to reduce sex crimes. A female-only bus means a woman will not be pinched in the behind. Even the abayya (burka) is designed to protect women: as long as a woman is properly dressed, her assailant will be severely punished, perhaps with death. Thus a woman can walk around Riyadh and not worry about being raped or someone copping a feel or even being subjected to wolf whistles. It's a very effective way to prevent sexual assault or harassment. The price, of course, is restrictions on female mobility and on female dress.

IN the West, we're equally obsessed with preventing sex crimes, but we give women lots of freedom. As a result, our rate of sex crimes is higher and the man is always the culprit. I suspect there's a middle ground we could reach, but that will be difficult in the West anymore. Women in the West want to get drunk and hop naked into bed with a naked man, then charge him with rape if he gets the wrong idea.

The Saudis are trying to give women the chance to work while protecting them from sex crimes. It's not a perfect solution--but neither is the Western solution. The Western solution is to give women rights and give men the responsibilities. Hardly fair.

I'd say more, but this post is getting too long. But this approach is reasonable is Saudi Arabia and is a step to improving the situation for Saudi women, as was allowing two women to compete in the Olympics. Saudi is not going to become Little America anytime soon. And keep in mind: men actually have defined rights in Saudi Arabia, rights that men in the West no longer have.