equally valued, women have to define themselves and assert their own voices in the arenas of politics, society, education and the arts 1999: 180.
Another opinion about the important of fighting for equality for women is by Simone de Beauvoir a French writer. As stated by Bressler,
According to Beauvoir, a woman must break the bonds of her patriarchal society and define herself if she wishes to become a significant human
being in her own right and defy male classification as the Other 1999: 182.
In order to have the same rights as men have, women should break the notion in the society that women and men are not equal and women are lower than men.
A particular movement of feminism is radical feminism. Specifically, radical feminism occurs because it is believed that women form a sex-class .
Women are seen as the fundamentally oppressed class. Radical feminism recognizes that the foundation of social inequality is the domination of women by
men. The patriarchal system is the root of all oppression of women as what Madsen says that the sexual oppression of women is seen to underlie the
economic, cultural and social subordination of women Madsen, 2000:152-153. Radical feminist is against the standard gender role that put women as inferior.
Thus, radical feminism intends to destroy the sex-class system in order to make a change and stops the oppression in the society so that women can have freedom
in living their life without being restricted by any restriction under the domination of men in the patriarchal society.
4. Women s Rights in Saudi Arabia
In Saudi Arabia, gender inequality is a very common phenomenon since Saudi Arabia society is a patriarchal society. Amani Hamdan in his article,
Women and education in Saudi Arabia: Challenges and achievements, explains that Saudi women were considered as extension of their male guardians and in
Saudi society in general, it is believed that the role of women was basic to maintaining the structure of the family and therefore of society 2005: 45
Some of the restrictions for women in Saudi Arabia are regulated. The government use Al- Quran and Sunnah as a based of the kingdom law. As Kelly
said in her book Women s Rights in The Middle East and North Africa, that The Basic Law of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not guarantee gender equality
2010: 425. Women in Saudi Arabia cannot have full freedom for their mobility, as
Kelly said that the social and cultural rights of women are limited by the same sex-segregation values that automatically limit the expression of all other forms of
women s activities 2010: 447. Some regulations do restrict the movement of women in Saudi Arabia yet
the society also plays an important role that causing the gender discrimination. As Amani Hamdan explains in his journal Women and Education in Saudi Arabia:
Challenges and Achievements that Women s issues in Saudi society are often mistakenly connected to Islamic teachings whereas women s inequality is
traditionally structured in the society 2005: 45. The strong patriarchal system in Saudi Arabia create a society in which women is inferior. An example of the
gender inequalities in Saudi Arabia is in choosing marriage partner. All matters related to marriage are in the hand of the family, as Haifaa A. Jawad explains in
The Rights of Women in Islam, she states
Most marriages that currently take place in Muslim societies are arranged unions, during which force and intimidation are quite often employed to
obtain the girl s consent 1998: 38. Arrange marriage system is something common that also take place in Saudi
Arabia society as an Islamic state.
Women in Saudi Arabia often lacks in choices regarding fundamental life decisions such as marriage, childbearing, and whether to work outside the home.
They are under the legal control of their closest male relative mahram Kelly, 2010: 449. Women do not have many choices in order to work, most of the job
fields are for men. The everyday mobility of women in Saudi Arabia is also limited. Women
are not permitted to drive a car by themselves. They are also not allowed to take care of any legal matters with bank or any other offices by themselves. For
example, until 2005, in order to obtain a commercial license for a business, a woman should proves that she had already hired a male manager and she needed
permission from her guardian to go into business or take out a bank loan Kelly, 2010:438. Without a male manager, a woman could never be able to run a
business in Saudi Arabia because men and women cannot interact freely so that a male manager is needed to take care of many things related to official tasks.
Since segregation in public places is one of the regulations in Saudi Arabia, it is prohibited for unrelated men and women to meet in public places
which can occur whether men and women are dining together in a restaurant, or meeting for business Kelly, 2010: 429. If they are caught by the religious police,
they will definitely be punished. In addition, Saudi Arabia society as a
conservative patriarchal society has so many legal constraints and social controls that limits the freedom of movement of all women in Saudi Arabia Kelly, 2010:
431.
5. Literature and Society
