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The spectacular surge of the Saudi female labor force (lesson for Pakistan)

It may have improved, but it is still lagging way behind where authorities wants it to be. And it only improved because of political pressure. BTW, I have nothing about women being rich. Good for them, just not at the expense of impoverishing men and depriving them from job opportunities. For the rest I agree. Even non-muslims in Africa and India still do bad things to women, so it is not related Islam and it cannot be accused. But the main thing is not to empower women at the expense of men. And let women choose what to pursue, not putting societal pressure on them to work or not like what politicians and the media is doing.
Before I write anything else let me state that I am a radical believer and advocator of meritocracy. Empowering women at the expense of men is incredibly stupid, I am not seeing such a thing in any Muslim country. There are so many sectors in which normal women are outperforming or are performing on par with men, these women must be encouraged. There are some exceptional women who are able to perform on par with men in certain sectors in which men outperform women on average, these exceptional women shouldn't be stopped or discouraged; however, they must be recognized as exceptional women as normal women won't be able to perform as well as them in such sectors.
 
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First things first. I know the hippocratic oath because I am a final-year med student. Not bragging about it. But being a doctor does not mean you are helping patients 24/24 7/7. The oath is regulating the medical practice, as in working and taking care of patients. It does not apply off-call or if you are using the restroom. Doctors have personnal lives as well, and have special obligations towards themselves and their families too, not only patients. An unemployed doctor has no responsibility whatsoever about any patient in the hospital, but can help people in the street in case of emergency for exemple. But using the oath as a pretext to imply that all doctors should work regardless of their personnal lives or choice is a transgression and is limiting the freedom of human beings which they are before even they become doctors. We often neglect that they have basic rights like everyone in society. You went for the special case of physicians because it is easier to manipulate and force them to do things for the 'freater good'. Doctors are paid to do a function that is treating patients. If they do not they are not paid, but they are still doctors because they have the certification.
Second, there are many jobs out there that only men can do, ie. heavy construction work, soldiering, commando ops, firefighting, police SWAT, blacksmiths, car mechanics. Basically most dirty, heavy-duty, and hard jobs are dominated by men. You may find some females, but they are an exception, not the rule, and those who do these kinds of jobs are not brilliant at what they do. They do it only because they are forced or desperately need a job or just to brag about it being the first female mechanic or special operator in the media of course. And these women are more like men in their behavior, speech, and never feminine and modest women. This pattern is present even in the most egalitarian societies in the world ( scandinavia). Listen to what the canadian PhD Jordan Peterson says about it in youtube. He is a clinical psychologist and studied the phenomenon for more than 25 years. It remains a disparity between men and women even if society is egalitarian, because women will never be men and vice versa. You cannot force it. Listen to special ops colonels speaking about female recruits crumbling under pressure. The women existing in SOF community joined it only because of political pressure from above and the relaxation of physical standards, otherwise they would never have maked their way to there. Some jobs are better suited to men, some are better for women. Simple, but not many people seem to understand it. It is exactly the same as telling us that men cannot be baby-sitters or nurses. There are, but only a minority, and we should agree that these jobs are better suited for females. I would rather go out and rob people than being a baby-sitter even if paid $10 million per day. This is my nature you cannot blame me. You cannot give a female 60Kg and ask her to march 16km in 4 hours. She won't finish the first miles before having stress fractures and quitting. To feel it better, let me say that you cannot give your mother or sister or wife 60Kg rucksack to complete a 16km forced march at 3 a.m in limited time, or are you okey with it? You are then exposing them to an unnecessary risk. I would rather to let my sister cook something than causing her a herniated disc. Watch stories about women rucking with male soldiers, that females end up distributing all their rucksack content for male soldiers who end up with significantly more weight in their rucksack, just for women to go light so they complete the march without needing a hospital, and only male soldiers suffer from this, because they cannot do the same for women. The US military is a perfect exemple that demonstrates the failure of the equality ideals. Their decision to include women in combat positions is motivated by political gains, not by efficiency. Soldiering is just an example. And yes, women cannot do it efficiently. Enjoy!

It is reckless to give women, who are our mothers sisters and daughters dangerous jobs such as firefighting, soldiering, SWAT, construction work where severe injury or death risk is high. Imagine if we do and pregnant women get killed or injured. It is just an unnecessary waste of human resources.
Any job that requires physical strength favors men. Women will never reach the same level as men. The most weight that a woman has ever lifted as I recall is 260Kg. Plenty of men lift 300Kg, and a few are north of 450Kg. These are facts that should not be overlooked. Women have other more strong points such as verbal abilities, empathy, caretaking, memory... that is why patients treated by female doctors have better outcomes than those treated by male doctors ( study published in the BMJ if you are curious google it). Totally natural and should never disturb anyone knowing his place in society. Have a nice day.

So you should know then that the primary care of duty for doctors is for their patients. They are not fullfilling their societal role by doing nothing, when there is a clear demand for doctors within the community.

Secondly you have proven my point. Any profession is within the reach of a woman, and manual unskilled labour which you are describing is becoming rarer by the day.

You are using a slippery slope fallacy, basically saying that encouraging women into the workforce will end up with the most physically demanding professions being staffed by women. This is nonsensical since standards and regulations will still exist regardless of the female labour participation rate.
 
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Cannot happen in Pakistan. Why?

1. No jobs.
2. 55% of Pakistani women are illiterate.
3. Pakistani women are on average having 3.5 babies.
4. Which jobs will pay enough money for these women to put these 3.5 kids in childcare whilst it still makes economic sense for her to work?
5. We are a country that still has child labour common place.
 
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Cannot happen in Pakistan. Why?

1. No jobs.
2. 55% of Pakistani women are illiterate.
3. Pakistani women are on average having 3.5 babies.
4. Which jobs will pay enough money for these women to put these 3.5 kids in childcare whilst it still makes economic sense for her to work?
5. We are a country that still has child labour common place.
There are so opportunities for women in freelancing.
 
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There are so opportunities for women in freelancing.

There are and there should be so much more. I just don't think anyone should expect the Saudi level of change.

They are a first world nation - we have a very different set of challenges. We should be looking at Bangladesh to see what works for them.

I am 100% a supporter of women in the workplace - but I am an even more ardent supporter of the trational family unit and children spending quality time with both thier parents.

I do not want an economic model in Pakistan where 2 incomes are standard, because eventually as in the UK it becomes almost mandatory and families then have to compromise between necessities or family time.

There are so many families here where both parents have to work to afford a middle class lifestyle and this means kids spend a lot of time in childcare. Meals are bought pre prepared and microwaved etc.


Whether the man works or the woman works doesn't matter, but we must ensure we protect our society so that families can survive on a single middle class income.


I don't think we have that right now to be honest.
 
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@SQ8

That is most likely due to Saudi Arabian women needing to prove themselves in the society and due to years of being denied rights that should have been given to them. My impression is that this is similarly the case among Pakistani women, Iranian women and Afghan women.

Anyway since I lived in KSA as a small child, (although I tend to visit each year to visit family that is still living there) compared to today, so much has changed, that it is hard to understand that we are talking about the same country and people. I was being told that KSA was vastly different prior to the Grand Mosque Seizure in 1979, the Iranian Islamic Revolution next door the same year and before the Sahwa era infested everthing in Saudi Arabia.

Now when I watch Youtube videos of tourists in KSA and just social media from KSA, it is like day and night. In mostly a good way.



Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't even think that Saudi Arabian women are allowed to take part in actual combat during wars but most other roles.

Mixing already took place prior to the reforms just not outright in the open. All the vices found everywhere also occurred just on a smaller scale. No country is safe from it, look at Afghanistan, the amount of pedophilia, bacha bazi (google it) that goes on is hard to believe. All under the noses of the Taliban who are no angels in this regard. The same Taliban earns a lot of its money engaged in opium trade. Which creates a large addicted population whose after effects are also found in Pakistan and in Iran next door. I could go on.

I never knew that Morocco was this extreme. Is Hijab banned in the army or in general? Has to be the army, surely?

Anyway I understand what you are talking about but this is how the world is in 2022. Try to survive today without social media, without the internet etc. You are bombarbed by influences that are not very healthy as a child. It is the onus of parents and family members and teachers etc. (as well as the state) to adopt the good and leave the bad away.

But all this is caused not only by modern technology but the rising atheism/agnosticism across the world. In part (in some areas of the Muslim world) due to corrupt clerics and Islam being misused by political parties and leaders. Pakistan is a prime example of this unfortunately.
Good analysis. I agree with you. I have never visited KSA, but I know from the media that feminist ideas are slowly but surely penetrating large portions of society, both men and women. It reminds me of our country 60 tears ago when modest women were working, respectfully. But it slowly turned to this current situation, where you see that Hijab is banned even in police force, let alone the military. It all started by tolerating small levels of degeneracy, and like a monster it grows until your very own existence and morals are threatened. That is why I am very concerned about KSA.
As for combat positions in KSA army, I saw that they were allowed to serve in some of the first replies on this thread.
The problem isn’t that muslims(of either sex) have not achieved a lot of progress. But that many muslim men get irked if a female achieves more(or anything depending upon the region) besides birthing and rearing kids.

Its not like the west doesn’t have pay gaps and its female empowerment movements are at times out of control and cause massive destruction in their society; it’s simply not relevant to muslim countries.

Ironically the muslims that claim to believe that they will be judged for only their deeds and their deeds alone spend most of their lives worrying about others and restricting them.

Unfortunately, you cannot comment on them either because you end up nearly being as judgmental as they are
It applies to non muslims as well. It is jealousy, which Islam warns of, but many do not listen anyway.
You cannot live as a muslim in a muslim community and still not care about it. Like a man in a ship with other people and still not caring if someone is not acting in accordance to the rules agreed upon that he may sabotage and sink the whole ship, and if no one stops him it will sink and all people will drown. It is like living in a country and not agreeing to its rules. People are judged according to their deeds or their lack therof too, like if you saw a road accident and you did not help passagers or rescue them. One can be punished also for passively watching sin and doing nothing, not only actively doing it. Not every muslim carries this obligation but the Law of God states that there should always exist in the community people who enforce the rules and restrict sin to uphold the community's standards. Like in every social media platform monitoring itself. If it does not then it is chaos, no rules are respected and it loses meaning.
You either restrict evil deeds of yourself first and other people second, or evil people will not only force you to tolerate evil but also restrict your good deeds under various pretexts. Whoever wants to be left alone can go to the desert. Even then scorpions and snakes will not let you in peace. That is how living in a community looks like. I am talking about good and bad deeds, not if your neighboord drinks milk or juice or wearing blue or green it is different for personnal matters as this is inappropriate. It is a balance about letting personnal freedom of people and improving and protecting the community from degeneracy. It is like a teacher writing a mistake in the board and some student corrects it to fix it, because if not the whole class will copy it and memorize the mistake. You may disagree if you have a different religion but we should remain respectful. I can show you crooked people from about any religion in the world and even atheists and irrelgious people too. Good and bad exists in every country.
 
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Before I write anything else let me state that I am a radical believer and advocator of meritocracy. Empowering women at the expense of men is incredibly stupid, I am not seeing such a thing in any Muslim country. There are so many sectors in which normal women are outperforming or are performing on par with men, these women must be encouraged. There are some exceptional women who are able to perform on par with men in certain sectors in which men outperform women on average, these exceptional women shouldn't be stopped or discouraged; however, they must be recognized as exceptional women as normal women won't be able to perform as well as them in such sectors.
Well, me too. The difference is that I see that the empowerment of women comes at the expense of men in my country at least, because when you increase the percentage of females in the army for example, you are automatically reducing the percentage of hard-working men who are useful, because the political goal is to have x percent of the army is totally females to brag about it being an equality country, instead of looking for efficiency and meritocracy as you said, when women are clearly not suited for the duties of combat. As for the rest, I totally agree with, except for that women should work in field that suit them the best. I don't want my sister to work as a car mechanic and get dirty, smell bad and being in contact with chemicals and cancerigene products all the day, or lifting 50kg cement bags to the 5th floor. I admit that there are few exceptionnal women in maths physics..., but there will always be plenty of men who easily outperform them, and thus we should not kick out these women.
 
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Good analysis. I agree with you. I have never visited KSA, but I know from the media that feminist ideas are slowly but surely penetrating large portions of society, both men and women. It reminds me of our country 60 tears ago when modest women were working, respectfully. But it slowly turned to this current situation, where you see that Hijab is banned even in police force, let alone the military. It all started by tolerating small levels of degeneracy, and like a monster it grows until your very own existence and morals are threatened. That is why I am very concerned about KSA.
As for combat positions in KSA army, I saw that they were allowed to serve in some of the first replies on this thread.

Well, Western trends are spreading across the entire world and no country is completely immune.

However currently I see no cause for concern.

Morocco and KSA also have different contemporary histories. Morocco has been more exposed to Western trends, Western tourists etc. and relies heavily on it as a source of income. Therefore to attract Western tourists they had to bend some of their cultural practices. There is also the whole "image" thing which is probably why hijab is foolishly banned in both the army and police forces. KSA does not have that problem (cash rules).

Economics is also at play here. While KSA is a rich country it is not cheap to provide for 5 + kids even there. Also birth rates are decreasing in all of the world.

Before I write anything else let me state that I am a radical believer and advocator of meritocracy. Empowering women at the expense of men is incredibly stupid, I am not seeing such a thing in any Muslim country. There are so many sectors in which normal women are outperforming or are performing on par with men, these women must be encouraged. There are some exceptional women who are able to perform on par with men in certain sectors in which men outperform women on average, these exceptional women shouldn't be stopped or discouraged; however, they must be recognized as exceptional women as normal women won't be able to perform as well as them in such sectors.

Perfectly written and I agree completely.

Cannot happen in Pakistan. Why?

1. No jobs.
2. 55% of Pakistani women are illiterate.
3. Pakistani women are on average having 3.5 babies.
4. Which jobs will pay enough money for these women to put these 3.5 kids in childcare whilst it still makes economic sense for her to work?
5. We are a country that still has child labour common place.

Hence the absolute necessity to heavily focus on education. To begin with the corrupt governments (succesive) have never spend more than 2% of the GDP (which is pathetically low to begin with compared to our 220 million big population) on education. Everything begins and ends with education.

If more Pakistanis were better educated (let alone literate) they would not be tolerating all the ills that occur in Pakistan on a governmental and local level. They would be asking big questions instead of just accepting the unacceptable status quo.
 
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Most very high ranking females in the world are menopausal ones.. putting fertile Muslim world females in very high ranking positions will be a big mistake.. since they are still fertile and thinking about making babies with Alpha leading males.. the West understood this.. because menopause women act like men, so there is no such risks and vulnerability..

We all should be big advocates of empowering women in all fields in the Muslim world.. no way ignoring half the population.. but it should be well thought of..women can be as productive as men,, but in different contexts and fields.. mostly in support roles.. like in the military .. as for the civilian roles.. we all know their support and performance in different fields ..and they even lead in some fields.. all married men throughout the world know this.. HaHa!
 
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Remember that widely propagandized case of the young Saudi Arabian girl that escaped to Australia?


She litterally turned into a wh*re. Just use Google….

1659821060170.jpeg



Then there are:

Saudi female aerospace engineer has sights set on the stars​



 
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