2015.02.03
Businesswomen Navigate Traditions in Saudi Arabia
By JOE SHARKEY
New York Times, Feb. 2 2015
Women traveling to Saudi Arabia often raise eyebrows there, and Michelle Obama was no exception.
When Mrs. Obama recently appeared in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in the company of President Obama with her hair uncovered, she was following well-established diplomatic protocol for prominent foreign women visiting the country, where strict religious laws otherwise require women to have their heads covered.
But a commotion ensued, exacerbated by a faked YouTube video that suggested that Saudi state television had blurred out images of Mrs. Obama and her uncovered head. The video had been doctored, and not by Saudi television. But a furor still is playing out on Twitter over Mrs. Obama and the absent head scarf.
That makes for an interesting backdrop, as more women are traveling to Saudi Arabia on business these days. And they are encountering the laws that limit the social and physical mobility of women in the kingdom, where it is illegal for a woman to drive a car.
In 2015, a theme being widely applied to the hajj pilgrimage that brings millions of Muslims to Saudi holy sites each year is “The Year of Development,” to highlight significant economic and social changes in the kingdom. In a country whose economy is being battered by the drop in world oil prices, there is growing emphasis on improving infrastructure and business development, including the building of new hotels. Among many global hotel companies with new projects in Saudi Arabia are Marriott, Carlson Rezidor and InterContinental, which is developing its Staybridge Suites brand in Jeddah.
But as this development expands, can businesswomen from abroad work effectively within a culture where, for example, a Saudi woman was arrested in December for attending a soccer match? Yes — but it requires planning and agility, says Nancy J. Ruddy, a co-founder of CetraRuddy, an architectural firm in New York that has been working in Saudi Arabia on the design for a large business hotel project in Jeddah. The five-star Galleria hotel and retail center is scheduled to open late this year.
We’re all familiar with the basic drill in Saudi society, where even restaurants are segregated, with women and children seated in special sections away from men. But I asked Ms. Ruddy whether there are lesser-known hurdles in doing business while female in Saudi Arabia.
“Any country that I go to, I really study the customs and I get advice from people who have been there, so the obvious things about having to wear these robes, these abayas, about being covered, everybody knows about those things,” she said. “But there are certain things we all assume are basic in our global world, even if it is a country like Saudi Arabia, such as the availability of bathrooms.”
Many of her business meetings with the development company, an arm of the Saudi royal family, took place in a modern 23-story office building, she said.
“But there was no ladies’ room, which was totally shocking to me,” she said. “During my first trip there, if I needed to use the bathroom, I would have to say that I need to go back to my hotel, and I would have to be walked back to the hotel by a man, because you’re not allowed as a woman to walk around unaccompanied on the streets. And because there are almost no women in the work force in Saudi Arabia, there are no ladies’ rooms in office buildings.”
So Ms. Ruddy resorted to a kind of bathroom diplomacy during her frequent work sessions there. “All of the male executives had private bathrooms, so I asked if it was possible for one of those bathrooms to be put out of commission so I could use it, so I wouldn’t have to ask some man to take me on a 15-minute walk back to my hotel.”
Voilà! Compromise was achieved and a little sign on a door solved a big problem.
By and large, as more women travel on business in Saudi Arabia, more of them are finding ways to work around the system, even as some social pressure builds within the country from Saudi women, who make up 20 percent of the country’s work force, up from 16 percent a decade ago. That is still among the lowest female work force percentages of any country, according to data from the World Bank.
“With so many U.S.- and global-based businesses in Saudi Arabia, travel to the country is only going to expand,” said Carol Margolis, the publisher of Smart Women Travelers. “Saudi women keep pushing for change and, as a result, travel into their country by Western women will become easier.”
Finding ways to navigate around customs that might seem insurmountable at first “has been very interesting,” said Ms. Ruddy, who also has developed projects in India.
“In Saudi Arabia, it’s clear they have a great admiration for expertise, so the rules were changed a bit when they saw that I was bringing expertise to the table, which is of course why they hired me in the first place,” she said. “After a while, some of the men would even call me by name and make direct eye contact.”
Small victories, of course, in a world where the ability to gracefully work around traditions is valued because, as every business traveler contemplating a trip to an unknown culture knows, as a general rule, when you have to go, you have to go.
New York Times, Feb. 2 2015
Women traveling to Saudi Arabia often raise eyebrows there, and Michelle Obama was no exception.
When Mrs. Obama recently appeared in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in the company of President Obama with her hair uncovered, she was following well-established diplomatic protocol for prominent foreign women visiting the country, where strict religious laws otherwise require women to have their heads covered.
But a commotion ensued, exacerbated by a faked YouTube video that suggested that Saudi state television had blurred out images of Mrs. Obama and her uncovered head. The video had been doctored, and not by Saudi television. But a furor still is playing out on Twitter over Mrs. Obama and the absent head scarf.
That makes for an interesting backdrop, as more women are traveling to Saudi Arabia on business these days. And they are encountering the laws that limit the social and physical mobility of women in the kingdom, where it is illegal for a woman to drive a car.
In 2015, a theme being widely applied to the hajj pilgrimage that brings millions of Muslims to Saudi holy sites each year is “The Year of Development,” to highlight significant economic and social changes in the kingdom. In a country whose economy is being battered by the drop in world oil prices, there is growing emphasis on improving infrastructure and business development, including the building of new hotels. Among many global hotel companies with new projects in Saudi Arabia are Marriott, Carlson Rezidor and InterContinental, which is developing its Staybridge Suites brand in Jeddah.
But as this development expands, can businesswomen from abroad work effectively within a culture where, for example, a Saudi woman was arrested in December for attending a soccer match? Yes — but it requires planning and agility, says Nancy J. Ruddy, a co-founder of CetraRuddy, an architectural firm in New York that has been working in Saudi Arabia on the design for a large business hotel project in Jeddah. The five-star Galleria hotel and retail center is scheduled to open late this year.
We’re all familiar with the basic drill in Saudi society, where even restaurants are segregated, with women and children seated in special sections away from men. But I asked Ms. Ruddy whether there are lesser-known hurdles in doing business while female in Saudi Arabia.
“Any country that I go to, I really study the customs and I get advice from people who have been there, so the obvious things about having to wear these robes, these abayas, about being covered, everybody knows about those things,” she said. “But there are certain things we all assume are basic in our global world, even if it is a country like Saudi Arabia, such as the availability of bathrooms.”
Many of her business meetings with the development company, an arm of the Saudi royal family, took place in a modern 23-story office building, she said.
“But there was no ladies’ room, which was totally shocking to me,” she said. “During my first trip there, if I needed to use the bathroom, I would have to say that I need to go back to my hotel, and I would have to be walked back to the hotel by a man, because you’re not allowed as a woman to walk around unaccompanied on the streets. And because there are almost no women in the work force in Saudi Arabia, there are no ladies’ rooms in office buildings.”
So Ms. Ruddy resorted to a kind of bathroom diplomacy during her frequent work sessions there. “All of the male executives had private bathrooms, so I asked if it was possible for one of those bathrooms to be put out of commission so I could use it, so I wouldn’t have to ask some man to take me on a 15-minute walk back to my hotel.”
Voilà! Compromise was achieved and a little sign on a door solved a big problem.
By and large, as more women travel on business in Saudi Arabia, more of them are finding ways to work around the system, even as some social pressure builds within the country from Saudi women, who make up 20 percent of the country’s work force, up from 16 percent a decade ago. That is still among the lowest female work force percentages of any country, according to data from the World Bank.
“With so many U.S.- and global-based businesses in Saudi Arabia, travel to the country is only going to expand,” said Carol Margolis, the publisher of Smart Women Travelers. “Saudi women keep pushing for change and, as a result, travel into their country by Western women will become easier.”
Finding ways to navigate around customs that might seem insurmountable at first “has been very interesting,” said Ms. Ruddy, who also has developed projects in India.
“In Saudi Arabia, it’s clear they have a great admiration for expertise, so the rules were changed a bit when they saw that I was bringing expertise to the table, which is of course why they hired me in the first place,” she said. “After a while, some of the men would even call me by name and make direct eye contact.”
Small victories, of course, in a world where the ability to gracefully work around traditions is valued because, as every business traveler contemplating a trip to an unknown culture knows, as a general rule, when you have to go, you have to go.
