Lori Anderson: Same sex in the new city

WHEN a woman says “what?” it’s not because she actually wants you to regurgitate the nonsense you just said, she is giving you one last chance to say something more pleasing.

“What?” has been uttered by many women around the world on hearing the startling news that Saudi Arabia is to build the first women-only city.

If the whole notion of women dressing for other women is true, then Allah help them but Lagerfeld, Dolce and McQueen will surely be laughing all the way to the bank.

The first of these industrial “no man’s lands” is to be built in the eastern city of Hafuf, at an estimated cost of £84 million, and is expected to create 5,000 jobs.

There will be production lines staffed by women and women-run firms dealing in textiles, pharmaceuticals and the food-processing industries.

The brain child of the Saudi Industrial Property Authority, whose deputy director, Salem Al-Rasheed, was quoted recently as saying: “I’m sure that women can demonstrate their efficiency in many aspects and clarify the industries that best suit their interests, their nature and their ability.”

He also said: “We are now working on a second industrial city for women. We have plans to establish a number of women-only industries in various parts of the kingdom.”

The reason for the kingdom’s crack-pot scheme is that 78.3 per cent of female university graduates are unemployed, including more than 1,000 women with Phds. In 1992, women accounted for just 5.4 per cent of the workforce in Saudi Arabia and while this figure has increased by almost 300 per cent in 20 years to 14.4 per cent, it still remains the lowest in the Gulf.

Six months ago, in an attempt to raise the figure, it was decided that all staff in lingerie stores should be female, a change soon to be rolled out to perfume and cosmetic stores and surely welcomed by their customers. Thank goodness, in the West, we would call men serving in lingerie shops abject pervs.

The role of women in Saudi Arabia is extremely restricted. It is the only country in the world where women are not permitted to drive and all women must have a male guardian, who has the final say on important decisions such as opening a bank account.

For a married women, it is her husband, for a widower, her eldest son or for a young girl, her father or one of her brothers.

The sexes are strictly segregated. In restaurants there are “men only” sections and separate sections where a family led by the male would dine.

Public buildings have separate entrances for men and women. In public, women are hidden behind the fabric shutters of the abaya, headscarf and niqab. Saudi Arabia is home to the largest all-female university in the world.

The reason for the strict separation of the sexes is more to do with Saudi Arabian culture than to the tenets of Islam. Muhammad, after all, met one of his wives while working for her as she was an astute businesswoman.

When we think of a female-only society, we either think of nuns behind their wimple and the cloister walls or that sole breasted fictitious tribe from ancient myth: the Amazons.

But there have been times when women have wished and been grateful to live alone and apart from men.

In Australia there are communities known as jimili, where Aboriginal women live alone, populated by widows, single women and wives who wish a break from their husbands. They are less a permanent settlement for all and rather a retreat into the comfort and security of one’s own sex.

In Brazil during the 1980s, as the country made the transition to civilian rule, police stations staffed only by women were set up in an attempt to more adequately tackle the issue of domestic violence.

However, when the sociologist Sarah J Hautzinger studied the dynamic of one station and the surrounding community in the city of Salvador da Bahia, she discovered that a number of the policewomen were surprisingly macho and had a disdain for those women they viewed as victims.

So what can we expect from this new “City of Women”? It would make a fantastic subject for a fly-on-the-wall documentary series following how the population of this new mono-sex city adapted to being finally free from a suffocating degree of patriarchal control.

Which alpha female would rise up to become the boss, how would each women’s character change, if indeed they did? And how would they cope with the stress of choosing what to wear on “dress down Friday”?.

There will be surely be women in the West who will view this new city as a ghetto, utterly unacceptable in any other nation if, instead of women, it was a city of Jews, or blacks. But what is interesting is how ingrained and accepted is the separation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia.

Western views of equality among the sexes is still unpopular in Saudia Arabia, where a strong section of women still do not believe that women should hold political office.

Yet there are signs of change. In 2015, for the first time, women will be able to vote and stand as candidates in local elections, while the image of Sarah Attar soaring down the track at the London Olympics as the first female competitor to represent Saudi Arabia would have been a startling and inspiring image for any young girl in the kingdom.

And yet I am still intrigued by the idea of a women-only city and how different it would be from a city of men. Would violence be lower, would it be a more benevolent, tolerable place?

As much as I regret the circumstances in which it is being set up, I can’t help but be fascinated by how such a same-sex city would operate.

As a wise woman once said: “If women ruled the world, there would be no wars … just a bunch of jealous countries not talking to each other.”

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