While women in Saudi will soon have the right to vote and obtain public offices, strict Islamic religious laws and social norms still remain that will further hamper their ability to carry out these legal rights. For instance: Unrelated men and women are not allowed to mix publicly–– in fact, they must be physically separated completely. This would severely limit how women could vote in a public place while men that are not of their family are in the building. The same restriction could prevent women from performing their duties as a public office holder. How are they to attend public meetings when by religious law they cannot be in the same room with men that are not of their own family?
Such severe social restrictions on their movements bring to mind questions on how reliable a woman’s vote would be? Would the male family escort influence a women’s vote? Could he force the woman to vote for whomever he decides is the best candidate? Is this a way to score more votes for a favored candidate by counting the woman’s vote as merely a ‘ghost voter’?
It is clear that Equality is not the same as freedom in Saudi Arabia. Steps are being taken by current administration to allow women greater equality in a male dominated world. But it remains to be seen how far they will allow women to actually go with their new freedom.
