Iranian and Saudi Women and the Tale of Document 2030

A video of Saudi women celebrating has recently circulated on Iranian social media, showcasing women who were able to drive in their cities without fear of the police for the first time. Additionally, a marriage contract image has attracted the attention of Iranian audiences; the photo shows a woman asking her husband to buy her a 2017 model car and to allow her to study and work. These are small signs of what Saudi women experienced last week, a week that began with women's participation in the national celebration in stadiums, continued with the issuance of women's driving licenses since 2018, and ended with the issuance of a fatwa allowing women to become muftis and the directive to draft laws protecting women against sexual assault. On social media, Iranian women say that Saudi women have advanced a century in just one week, a progress that, as journalist and equality activist Mohsen Farshidi living in Germany states, did not happen overnight: "The first efforts of women to protest social inequalities in Saudi Arabia date back nearly three decades. However, this process has accelerated significantly in the last ten years with the growth of social media, and Saudi women began to create campaigns with widespread international support as they felt more acutely the discrimination they faced. Specifically, for about the last seven years, the first women in Saudi Arabia took the wheel themselves, demanding change despite the dangers posed not only by the rulers of the country but also by the traditional society. The discussion has not only been about women's driving but also includes laws related to work, marriage, and leaving the country, all of which require the presence of a male guardian who must grant permission. To understand the extent of the gender gap there, it is enough to know that many women in Saudi Arabia do not even have identification documents and need a guardian to prove their identity." Despite all the efforts of Saudi women activists, their resistance, and even imprisonment, it seems that the restrictive laws in Saudi Arabia, like in Iran, are based on religious foundations that are now rapidly changing. Mohammad Javad Akbarin compares the relationship between the Saudi and Iranian governments with the religious policymakers of both countries, stating: "There is not much difference in the relationship between power and Sharia in Iran and Saudi Arabia. I am not talking about the legality or illegality of certain rulings currently under discussion. I am talking about the relationship between power and Sharia. If power wants, it can change Sharia rulings, whether in Iran or Saudi Arabia. If in Iran, certain rulings were once considered forbidden and could not even be approached without consequences, we later saw that the situation changed. In this country, chess was considered a clear prohibition. However, Ayatollah Khomeini's power dictated that when he ruled chess permissible without gambling, its fate changed. The same happened with music and women's makeup in cinema... Some rulings in Iran had this fate. In Saudi Arabia, too, issues that if someone approached them or committed them, like women's driving, could lead to arrest, are now declared permissible by the ruling power, with other clerics supporting it, just as they supported Ayatollah Khomeini. Some of the rulings he issued differed from the official interpretation of Sharia or previously issued fatwas." Mohsen Farshidi, however, believes that the current changes in Saudi Arabia are largely influenced by international pressures, stating: "What is happening in Saudi society now is that alongside women's efforts for these changes, the traditional Saudi society and the Saudi government are slowly yielding to these changes. The event of women driving in Saudi Arabia can be seen as part of Document 2030 and major reforms in that country. These changes have occurred in several areas, including economic, military, political, and social. Where it comes to the social aspect of Document 2030, the biggest problem for Saudi society in better joining the global community is the issue of women. In many international organizations, wherever Saudi representatives are present, women's issues are raised, and they are compelled to address women's issues in some form to achieve the progress and vision they have in mind. According to this document, in the social sphere, women, as equals to men, must attain their basic rights. However, the problem is that according to a series of past surveys, nearly 85% of the traditional segment of society supports these anti-women laws. In Saudi Arabia, we have a segment of hardline and conservative clerics who hold significant political power and can obstruct changes with their rulings... Document 2030 and Iranian Women In Iran, however, the implementation of Document 2030 did not occur as simply as in Saudi Arabia. Iran's accession to this UN document coincided with the twelfth presidential election, leading to a wave of protests that even brought female clerics to the streets in cities like Mashhad and Qom. The Iranian government strives to present itself as different in its religious and ideological aspects and defends its Islamic identity at all costs, thus resisting more against international public opinion and the documents published by international organizations; particularly the conservative faction of the government, including Mr. Khamenei, views these documents as challenges rather than as means to address internal problems or to better understand their public opinion. The cumulative pressures on Hassan Rouhani's government led it to retreat before making even the slightest progress in implementing the document and announce that it would not implement its provisions. Nevertheless, the implementation of this very document, which Saudi Arabia has also accepted, has led to significant changes in the rights of Saudi women. I ask Saeed Peyvandi, a university professor in France, how it is that among two Islamic countries both claiming leadership of the Islamic world, a country like Saudi Arabia accepts the implementation of this document while another like Iran does not? Saeed Peyvandi responds: "Saudi Arabia is gradually trying to change the image that exists outside of Saudi Arabia and in the eyes of global public opinion, and it is attempting to create a new and different image of Saudi Arabia compared to its traditionally harsh past through some reforms and by granting concessions to civil society. International documents provide good opportunities for this country to take positive steps toward social reforms under the pretext of these documents, despite internal opposition." Regarding Iran's view on joining Document 2030, Saeed Peyvandi states: "The Iranian government is trying very hard to present itself as different in its religious and ideological aspects and to defend its Islamic identity at all costs, thus resisting more against international public opinion and the documents published by international organizations; particularly the conservative faction of the government, including Mr. Khamenei, views these documents as challenges rather than as means to address internal problems or to better understand their public opinion." From comparing the legal changes for women in Iran and Saudi Arabia, it can be inferred that Iranian women have a difficult path ahead to change their laws. A path that, according to Mohammad Javad Akbarin, a religious scholar residing in France, is inevitable: "I do not deny that the interests of Saudi foreign policy and perhaps some international legal pressures forced this government to accept some changes, but who created this expectation and raised this voice to the international community that 'we are suffocating, we need these changes'? So that in times of crisis, the Saudi government sees that if it wants to present a better image of itself to the world, it must respond to these voices. There is a reciprocal relationship between the activities that women in Saudi Arabia have undertaken to assert their rights and the groundwork they have prepared for these events and their relationship with the international community in the admiration they receive worldwide.