Shahd Alhamdan
WITH 13 percent of jobs in the Saudi market occupied by women, and with the growing rate of employment among Saudi women that has crossed 48 percent, many men nowadays are having to ask about the kind of job a woman works. Some men still require that a woman leave her work so that they can complete the marriage process, but a large numbers of women who want to get married are refusing to quit their jobs for a man because they do not want to give up on financial security.
Other Saudi women have justified their rejection, saying men cannot be trusted and do not deserve such a significant sacrifice.
Increasingly, men are agreeing with women’s opinions. However, some women, though very few in numbers, are willing to leave their jobs to get married, as long as their men can guarantee them financial security.
Abrar Shalabi, general manager at a PR company, said: “I will refuse because marriage life is supposed to be based on mutual trust and respect between the spouses, so if the man asks the woman to leave her work, this is an indication that there is no common intellectual or futuristic denominators between the future bride and groom.”
The cofounder of the I Can Speak Arabic Center, Hadeel Alabassi, said if she was not married and someone asked her to leave her job for him, she would refuse because no man in the world was worth giving up her dreams for.
“I will refuse because the job is a source of security and stability,” Saja Shabeen, a single female lecturer, said.
Sara, a divorcee, said she would refuse such an idea because security came from a job, not marriage.
Some men are also supporting women’s opinion when it comes to making their career path a priority.
Hussain Jamal Al-Lail, a mechanical engineer, said: “I will support my wife and stand by her because she has a vital role in society. Life has changed and now a woman should help her husband to make it better.”
Some men still prefer to have their wives working at home rather than having a job outside.
Yousef Al-Abdullah, a single policeman, explained that if the work environment was bad, he would ask his wife to resign from her job.
Mahmoud, an Egyptian expatriate, said if a man is financially secure then the question is why his wife should work.
Divorcee Sumar Aljedawi, who currently works, said she would accept having to give up her job on one condition: living in the same social class after she leaves her work and her husband compensates her for her lost income.
She however said she would prefer a middle solution of having a part time job.
