Gender Discrimination on the Main Characters

CHAPTER III RESEARCH FINDINGS

A. Gender Discrimination on the Main Characters

a. Marginalization

Marginalization in general means the process of marginalizing. Women marginalization is related to patriarchal culture which locates women at domestic sector and men in public sector. Marginalization toward women is not just happen in work place but also in several of life, such as in economy, government, and family circle. Marginalization toward women happened since in family scope in form of discrimination family member between men and women. Marginalization also supported by tradition or religion interpretation so women always become the victims of these gender inequalities. Women are not welcomed in government and its political system. The society assumed that women are irrational and emotional, so women are not allowed to be a leader. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries which does not allow women to join public activities especially in government or political life or it called absolute monarchy. 21 As it has been described in the novel The Girls of Riyadh and experienced by Sadeem, one of the major characters in the 21 Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government where the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, thus wielding political power over the sovereign state and its subject peoples. story. When all Arab countries are protesting to show their support for the Palestinian Intifada, she and her classmates are prohibited from participating in those days. “Sadeem: all of her classmates and everyone at their age were on the margin when it came to political life. They had no role, no importance. If only she understood politics” p.61 We can see that Sadeem and her friends have no right at all to participate in politic. It is contradicted to some basic human right such as the right to political participation. Their movements to express their opinion have to be limited by the government.

b. Subordination

Societal norms and rules are patriarchal in Saudi Arabia, and women are perceived and treated as second-class citizens. As a result, women in Saudi Arabia continue to face discrimination in most areas of society. They have fewer rights than men in family matters, their freedom of movement is restricted and rights are limited. Women’s actions and choices frequently depend on the permission or wishes of their mahram. 22 22 A women’s mahram is the husband or a male who cannot marry her, like her father, brother, uncle, or father in law. Based on the novel The Girls of Riyadh, women are presented as a person who has a limited freedom. All that considering to women have to be arranged according to command. “You barely walk, you barely talk, you barely smile, you barely dance, be mature and wise, you always think before you act, you measure your words carefully before you speak and you do not behave like a child.” p. 6 We can see from the text above that the girls in their society, expected to talk, walk, behave and even breathe in a strained, instructed manner. They cannot do what they want to do. Women in Saudi Arabia cannot move freely, more than anything else to unmarried women like Gamrah, she is forbidden to go outside without accompanied by her male relatives like her conservative family do to her. “…while Gamrah wasn’t allowed to leave the house by herself. And in her rare visits to Sadeem’s house, her mother insisted that one of her brothers deliver her in person and bring her back even though the driver was always around.” p. 165 The quotation clearly explains that Gamrah’s freedom to socialize with her friends is so limited. Men’s guardianship over women which is mentioned in the Qur’an has been interpreted in Saudi Arabia more according to patriarchal view that men have power over women so women will not make any progress if the government does not end the policies like that. The first main character is named Gamrah. Among her best friends, she is the first character who marries. The author, Rajaa Al Sanea said that for Saudi girls, marriage is the death of freedom, creativity and friendship. Saudi women face various restrictions within the family context such as about marriage. The girls are not involved in making decisions surrounding their own marriages. The marriage contract is officially between the husband-to-be and the father of the bride. Gamrah has to face this treatment. She is told by her mother that there is a family who wants to apply her to their son. Her wedding is also planned by her family. “Before the wedding, Gamrah saw Rashid only once, and that was on the day of the shoufa; the day set for the bridegroom’s lawful viewing of the bride to-be. The tradition of her family did not permit the man seeking the engagement to see the bride again before the contract signing.” p. 49 She has to marry with Rashid. She does not have any idea about this guy because there are no dating, no exchange idea of thought between them because both of them do not be permitted to meet each other before the signing contract. This culture is difficult to be changed because they considered that love and pure affection can show up after the marriage. Subordination over women in The Girls of Riyadh also can be seen in Gamrah’s wedding. Subordination makes women at the second position after men. It proves with the corpus below. “Suddenly the men came shooting through the door like arrows, the fastest arrow of all being the groom… The women retreated en masse, desperately searching for whatever they or their friends had that would conceal their hair and faces---not to mention any other revealing body part---from the eyes of those men on the march.” p. 8 After their marriage, Gamrah has to move to the United States because her husband has to finish his graduate school of Ph. D there. Not too long after their marriage, Gamrah feels that there is something wrong with her husband. Her husband does not treat her like his true wife. He is rude and harsh to her. Rashid does not care Gamrah at all as if she does not exist. He never has an initiative to help her in home. Women in Arab culture do not have right to involve the men in household things. “Furthermore, she had no right to ask him for help in tidying up or preparing meals or washing dishes...” p. 72 Life after marriage for almost women in Saudi Arabia is unpredictable because between the men and women are not permitted to meet and know each other before the wedding party held by. And everything about it is controlled by their family. Like Gamrah’s and her sisters’ experience when they got to marry. “As far as they were concerned, marriage was—as they always said—like the watermelon on the knife, you never knew what you were going to get. Her older sister Naflah’s watermelon had turned out to be one of those “extra-sweet”, while her own watermelon—and her sister Hessah’s—were more like dried out, empty gourd.” p. 50 Because of most of Saudi Arabian women have to marry with family’s choice like Gamrah did, each of her best friends hope that they will become the last who have to marry. Because marriage is sadness, regret and sorrow for them. “Every last one of Gamrah’s girl friends was secretly hoping that the keepsake from her own wedding would be the next one to be added.” p. 13 Saudi woman usually must obtain permission from a guardian -- father, husband, or son -- to work, travel, study, marry, etc. Women in Saudi Arabia need to gain a male guardian’s consent to do almost anything. It happens with Michelle, when she asks her father in order to give his agreement for the job that she wanted. “Few months later, Michelle was officially made a producer of the program. Then she got her own show to produce. They asked her to be the on-air presenter, but Michelle’s father refused to allow her to host a show that would be broadcast in the home of his relatives in Saudi Arabia.” p. 197 From the text above, we can see that women’s actions and choices frequently depend on the permission or wishes of their mahram such as in public business. They do not have personal freedom to decide what they want. A third character, Sadeem also has to feel that she has been treated as a second class citizen. It can be seen when she get married with Waleed, a handsome civil servant from a prominent lineage. “During the official proceedings Sadeem pressed her fingerprint onto the page in the enormous registry book after her protest about not being allowed to sign her name was dismissed… The Sheikh says fingerprint not signature. The men are the only ones who sign their names.” p. 30 From the quotation above, we can see that Saudi Arabia and its peculiar customs are considered that only men who can give his name and signature in registry book. It assures that women always have to be inferior minor under men’s rule. It is clearly that there is an ascription that women do not have an important position in society there. Her first emotional tragedy is caused by Waleed who deserts her after they are officially wed for a few months and before their wedding party. She gives herself to him one night considering that he is her husband officially despite the wedding not having yet taken place. He suddenly disappears after that night and never shows up again. And a divorced paper finally comes to her. She does not know what had happened with him. “Sadeem was afloat in a state of bewilderment, waiting for a call or visit from Waleed, dreaming that he would come to her on his knee begging for forgiveness. But he didn’t visit and didn’t call…. An answer did come from Waleed three week later, though: Divorced paper” p. 34 According to the text above, in Saudi Arabia, men can easily divorce his wife without giving cause like happen with Sadeem. Her head is just full of questions about the reason why Waleed deserts her, because she thinks that he is her husband officially. It is different if women want to divorce. They have to go to the court to prove her case for divorce. Most Saudi Arabian women are treated nothing more than chattel. Another setting where there have been claims of gender discrimination is about banking. In Saudi Arabia, women are forbidden to have an access to bank loans or to open a bank account. Sadeem has to ask her cousin, Tariq, to help her to take care of official tasks, obtaining a commercial license and other necessary documents since she start a business as a wedding planner. It is explained below. “Since women are not always permitted to take care of legal matters with banks and other offices themselves, Sadeem made him their official agent for legal affairs.” p. 214-215 Socially, sexual differences have been used to justify different roles for men and women, in some cases giving rise to claims of primary and secondary role.

c. Stereotype

Generally, stereotype is denoting or labeling to a certain group, tribe or certain nation that always have a negative connotation, so that it often causes the gender inequalities. Labeling which is related to the difference of certain sex women will cause the negative impression to the women’s characteristic. Traditionally, the female stereotypic role is to marry and have children. She is also to put her familys welfare before her own; be loving, compassionate, caring, nurturing, and sympathetic; and find time to be sexy and feel beautiful. The male stereotypic role is to be the financial provider. He is also to be assertive, competitive, independent, courageous, and career- focused; hold his emotions in check; and always initiate sex. In The Girls of Riyadh, the narrator often uses the citations of the famous poet and Qur’an-Hadits and also from the song of the famous singer to depict how the situation of her girls friends in her country. Here is one of the Sanea’s favorite poetry which depict how the girls in her country to be treated by society. “This culture we claim— Bursting bubbles of soap, of slime We live on, by the logic of key and lock We swathe our women in cotton shrouds We possess them like the carpets beneath us, Like the cows in fenced fields. To flock home at night’s end, For our due, bulls and steeds unpenned, Five minutes and no more, Without feeling, without a core And then corpse-like we lie Our partners abandoned Left to burn in slow fire In mud, slime and mire, Halfway down the path we leave them behind: Ah, the vulgarity of steeds” p.24 In The Girls of Riyadh, there are some negative points of view about women. Many rules in society are implemented for women. Like or not, she has to follow those rules, if she does not want to be considered as a bad girl in society. The first example is about divorced women. Like Gamrah’s and Sadeem’s statue. Divorced women in Saudi society are associated with ill- reputation. Qamrah becomes a single parent and has to live at her father’s house in isolation. Her family prevents her from going out since she was divorced. ”As for Gamrah, she kept up a steady stream of complaints about her mother’s constant harassment; she moaned that her mother forbade her to go out the way she used to, just because she was now divorced and, her mother claimed, all eyes were fixed on her, waiting for a single misstep and prepared to spread the most lurid rumors about her.” p. 116 “Dozen of times of every day, Gamrah heard that old tune: “What? Did you forget you are a divorcee?” Of course she hadn’t forgotten it, not for a single second.” p.116 The society’s perspective which is considering that divorced women only bringing badness so that her freedoms must be limited in order to avoid the bad gossip from the sick society, it is very contradictive with the Prophet’s hadith which is saying that: The virgin’s agreement to a marriage must be sought by her guardian, but the widow or divorcee has more right to her own person than does her guardian. Sadeem also has to feel this treatment from her society like Gamrah. When she goes aboard to London, she meets with Firas, a Saudi Arabian man too. They plan to get married soon because both of them have already felt comfortable. But when Firas knows that Sadeem is a divorced women and the fact that he has never married before, it prevents him from getting married to a divorced women because it will bring him bad gossip which he does not need divorced women in the Saudi society are associated with ill-impression especially if they travel outside the country and meet man as Sadeem did. “Well, if he loves you as you say he does, then why hasn’t he proposed to you yet?” “This is exactly what I don’t get, either, Auntie.” “Didn’t you tell me you thought he changed after he found out that you have been previously married to Waleed?” “He didn’t change, really, but… well, I sensed that he was a little different, maybe.” p. 160 It is very inversely proportional with the fact that only divorced women who treated so badly by the society and become the prisoner in her own home than divorced men. Like the narrator’s concern about her friends’ status. ”Is divorced a major problem committed by the woman only? Why doesn’t our society harass the divorced man the way it crushes the divorced woman? … Meanwhile, divorced men go on to live fulfilling lives without any suffering or blame?” p. 163 In Saudi Arabian culture, family ties are a priority and therefore a womens primary role is believed to be raising children a taking care of the household. Most Saudi Arabian daughters are raised to believe that a womens place is at home and a mans place is at workplace. This treatment also experienced by Gamrah when she marries with Rashid. “It went on like that. Everyday, he would get her worked up about of this sort. And yet she would be in for a terrible time is she were to forget in the evening to prepare his clothes or to iron them firs thing in the morning before he was awake.” p. 72 Michelle, a half American-Saudi girl, also has to accept a bad treatment from the society because she is not pure Saudi girl. “Why doesn’t this society respect the difference between my family and other Saudi family? Everyone consider me a bad girl just because my mother is American How can I live in such an unjust society?” p. 86 A racial prejudice 23 also comes from her lover’s mother. Faisal’s mother does not permit him to make a relationship again with Michelle after she knows that Michelle comes from the unknown family. “Aah the girls of this generation How awful they were And aah for her young, green-son—she would never have expected him to fall into the trap of a girl such as this She asked him who the girl’s maternal uncles were and as soon as she heard that the girl’s mother was American, she decided to bang the door shut FOR GOOD on this fruitless dialogue around this utterly ridiculous topic.” p. 88

d. Violence against Women

The definition domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can happen to anyone regardless of race, age, sexual orientation, religion, or gender, and that it can take many forms, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional, 23 Saudi society is divided by old tradition into two sectors that do not marry from each other. One sector is referred to as ‘tribal’ since their ancestor is traceable to ancient times and another is ‘non-tribal’ since their ancestor is not traceable. economic, and psychological abuse. In this research, violence happen against women. All forms of domestic abuse have one purpose is to gain and maintain total control over the victim. Abusers use many tactics to exert power over their spouse or partner are dominance, humiliation, isolation, threats, intimidation, denial and blame. In this research, the writer wants to analyze those kind of violence against women in the novel The Girls of Riyadh.

a. Physical Violence

Physical abuse is abuse involving contact intended to cause feelings of intimidation, pain, injury, overloaded work, limited freedom communicating, expressing an opinion, and so on. In this novel, Gamrah is the one who has to suffer more intends than her other girl friends; she has to feel this kind of treatment from her own husband, Rashid, when she knows that her husband cheats on her with the Chinese girl. “Yeah, right So I’m the one who wasn’t raised properly And what about you, mister Cheating on me with the Asian housemaid The slap landed on her right check, and the sound of it echoed in her head.” p.79 “She gave herself up to it despite the enormous anxiety she felt. She closed her eyes, anticipating what was about to happen. And then he surprised her with an act that was never on her “life of her sexual expectations” His response, which was shocking to both of them, was to slap her hard on the face then and there” p.26 Based on the quotation above, Rashid’s behavior to his wife is very rude and harsh. He can slap and affront her as he likes. Gamrah, as a woman, only can accept it without interrupt or angry because a wife does not permitted to do that to her husband if she does not want to be divorced or being hanged. Other character like Lamees also has to accept this treatment. In Saudi, the relation of different sexes who hasn’t married yet is prohibiting by the government. “One day, as Lamees and Ali sat together in a café on Al-Thalatheen Street, a band of men from Al-Hai’ah 24 swooped down on them and led the pair off swiftly to two separate GMC jeeps and headed immediately for the organization’s nearest bureau.” p. 131 From the text above we can see that it is one of the examples of physical violence because it limits someone to communicate to each others. In Saudi Arabia, expressing an opinion about something which is related to government is forbidden. Freedom of speech and the press are 24 Al-Hai’ah is a short name for the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, i.e. The Religious Police. restricted to forbid criticism of the government. It happens with Sadeem and her classmates. “She recalled suddenly the demonstration she and her classmates had been prohibited from participating in, in those days, when all Arab nations were protesting to show support for the Palestinian Intifada… Had politics been accessible only to generals and rulers?” p. 61 We can see from the text above that Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has ruled with few opportunities for free political activities. Public demonstrations to express opinion are forbidden.

b. Emotional or Psychological Violence

Emotional abuse also called psychological abuse or mental abuse can include humiliating the victim privately or publicly, controlling what the victim can and cannot do, withholding information from the victim, deliberately doing something to make the victim feel diminished or embarrassed, isolating the victim from friends and family, implicitly blackmailing the victim by harming others when the victim expresses independence or happiness, or denying the victim access to money or other basic resources and necessities. As woman, these four girls experienced various kind of violence including emotional or psychological abuse. All that relate to women always controlling by family, society or even by government. “I’m sick of how we let everyone control us and lead us through this life. We can never do anything without the fear of being judged holding us back. Everyone steers us along according to what they want. What kind of life is that We don’t have a say about our own lifes” p. 169 Gamrah felt so much bad treatments from her own husband. Everything that she did always becomes wrong in Rashid’s eyes. It can be seen when Rashid gave his comment at Gamrah’s performance. “Whenever she went out, Gamrah wore a long overcoat with a hair cover called hijab. Even her clothes became a source of irritation to her husband after a while “why don’t you wear ordinary clothes like the other women here? It’s as if you are trying to embarrass me in front of my friends with the thing you wear And then wonder why I don’t take you out with me” p. 49 The text above includes to verbal abuse also called reviling is a form of abusive behavior involving the use of language. It is a form of profanity that can occur with or without the use of expletives. Whilst oral communication is the most common form of verbal abuse, it includes abusive words in written form. Not only from her husband she accepts that kind of treatment, but also from her family. When she become a divorcee, her family have to isolate her in her father’s house from going outside because in their Saudi society, a divorced woman always delivering ill-reputation. ”As for Gamrah, she kept up a steady stream of complaints about her mother’s constant harassment; she moaned that her mother forbade her to go out the way she used to, just because she was now divorced and, her mother claimed, all eyes were fixed on her, waiting for a single misstep and prepared to spread the most lurid rumors about her.” p. 116 Gamrah’s mother is very strict women. She always forbids what her daughters want to do. Their movements are so limited in family. “My mama is so old-fashioned and unsophisticated. Every time we asked anything of her, all she answered was NO We couldn’t do this, we couldn’t say that She always criticized everything.” p. 165 The government also play role to make woman so suffering. Lamees has to feel the intimidation by the Religious Police when she and Ali catch in café. It can be seen from the quotation below. “There, they put Lamees and Ali into two separate rooms and began interrogations. Lamees could not bear the hurtful questions put to her. They asked her in detail about her relationship with Ali. They used coarse language and they forced her to hear words that have embarrassed her even in front of her most intimate girl friend.” p. 130

e. Job Segregation by Sex

The relationship between gender inequalities in the houshold and workpalce relates to the false dichotomy often constructed between public and private, production and reproduction, workplace and domestic sphere, and ultimately, masculine and feminine. Examining gender relations in the household is also an important way of linking gender-based discrimination against woman in the domestic sphere and their marginal status in the workplace and public domain. The subordination of women in the household should be considered a human rights. In The Girls of Riyadh, Gamrah has to do all kind of household things. Her husband does not has an inisiate to help his wife. “It went on like that. Every day, he would get her worked up about things of this sort. And yet she would be in for a terrible time if she were forget in the evening to prepare his clothes or to iron them first thing in the morning before he was even awake. Furthermore, she had no right to ask him for help in tidying up or preparing meals or washing dishes, even though he has been accustomed to living the bachelor life all those years of studying in America.” p. 72 Based on the description above about how women are treated especially in Saudi Arabia, it can be seen that patriarchal system is the root of women’s oppression. It arise the gender inequalities and increases the oppression and violation against women and kill women potential.

B. Characters’ Attitude Toward Discrimination