Khaled Solaiman
Okaz
Lama Al-Solaiman, an influential female member of the Jeddah Municipal Council has refused to confirm or deny reports about her resignation from the council after a gender equality controversy sparked by separating men from women in the council’s meetings.
The council prevented female members from sitting on the same table with men during its meetings. It asked them to participate in the discussions through a closed TV circuit.
She answered a question from Okaz on the topic by saying: “Do not ask me about the council. I do not want to talk about it.”
If, in this case, we do not ask the person concerned, whom shall we ask? If Lama abstains from clarifying the matter who else will?
In my humble opinion, Lama is sending a polite message of protest for preventing her and her other female colleague from attending the council’s meetings on the same table with their male counterparts.
If I were her, I would have made my protest message direct, loud and thunderous. She is an elected member. No one has the power to deprive her of the legitimate right to represent her voters and meet the obligations and commitments on which she was elected.
It was obvious that the rules and regulations about seating in the councils were hastily drafted by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs.
These rules are meaningless since there is a precedence of men and women sitting together in the same hall in the Shoura Council.
When the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques received women on several occasions, he did not seclude them in separate halls. They sat in a place specified for them in the same room in complete dignity and honor.
Women usually pray behind lines for men. They are not secluded in separate rooms to do their prayers via closed TV circuits.
We have witnessed a number of educational lectures which were attended by women without secluding them in other places.
Therefore, I do not see any justification for female members of the municipal councils to be put in separate rooms.
Lama, with her modest hijab, positive attendance and educational success, is a model of the Saudi woman who is keen to participate in the building of her society and homeland.
The last thing I expect from her is to give up.
