Saudi Arabia: Set Sights on Big Prizes, Al-Dossary Tells Women

RIYADH — As part of an annual recognition of the region’s business movers and shakers, Arabian Business Magazine awarded Nadia Al-Dossary the Saudi Achievement Award for 2008. There was only one small problem: Al-Dossary is a woman.

It doesn’t matter if Al-Dossary heads an Alkhobar-based scrap metal empire with an annual turnover of SR500 million. It doesn’t matter that she’s been profiled in The Washington Post and that the Financial Times named her one of the top 25 economically influential women in the Middle East.

When she arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh recently to attend the awards ceremony, she was turned away due to social restrictions (enforced by the religious police) prohibiting unrelated men and women from mixing, even in public.

For her part, Al-Dossary seems unperturbed by the move. “It was not a devastating incident for me, as I have been in the international news,” she said. “We Saudi businesswomen do stand up and are being noticed, accepted and appreciated.”

Al-Dossary clearly believes that women in Saudi Arabia are making progress, and she cites the elections to the powerful chambers of commerce. Al-Dossary was one of six women who ran in the Asharqia Chamber’s board election last year. Though no woman won a position, it was viewed as a triumph that they were allowed to run as candidates. It is the women entrepreneurs, she says, that will do the most to promote women in the Kingdom.

“When given the chance, Saudi businesswomen have proved to be subjective and rational in presenting themselves and this has a very positive reflection on the global image of the Saudi women in general,” she said.

When asked about the role of businesswomen in finding solutions to unemployment and providing job opportunities for women, Al-Dossary said that the government must take the lead.
“You cannot hold the private sector responsible,” she said. “We are not in charge.”

Indeed, hiring women is not a simple matter. Companies that hire women must, as the Four Seasons Hotel did in Riyadh by turning Al-Dossary away, ensure that men and women do not mingle. This requires entirely separate sections for women. At events open to men and women, for example, women are typically relegated to a side room to watch the event on closed-circuit television while the men sit in the main hall. For many small businesses, integrating women employees is an economically unviable option, she said.

Hiring women also draws scrutiny from the religious police, who monitor businesses where men and women must interact. Many companies simply find it untenable to facilitate men and women employees. (However, some companies see the benefits of establishing women-only presences. The retail chain H&M recently announced it would open a women-only store in Riyadh within the next year, including women sales clerks.)

As far as Al-Dossary is concerned, the private sector should only be viewed as a “partner in the education and recruitment movement” and cannot move forward without the government’s lead.

Al-Dossary, who praises Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for his efforts to empower Saudi women, points out that it’s difficult to encourage the private sector to invest in facilitating women employees if that investment is viewed as a risk. She cites the recent issue with lingerie shops (and other stores catering to women’s products). While the government has announced a plan to replace the foreign male workers at these shops with Saudi women, there has been no visible momentum. Small business owners are hesitant to move forward until such momentum is viewed as safe and viable.

“Although the Ministry of Labor approved (the plan to allow Saudi women sales clerks at lingerie shops and the like), and business associates paid for preparations, it was dead on arrival. We — as a private company — cannot invest so much time preparing, training and educating individuals to be faced later with rejections or regulations.”

Still, Al-Dossary says, Saudi women must be a part of the momentum, and must be more proactive. She doesn’t advocate large, clumsy steps but rather careful and steady progress.
“Opportunities are not given, they are taken,” she said, advising younger Saudi women to set their sights on the larger prizes rather than picking a series of smaller fights.

-- Walaa Hawari, Arab News