Saudi Arabia, under domestic and international pressure to grant women sporting rights, is creating separate stadium sections so that female spectators and journalists can attend soccer matches in a country that has no public physical education or sporting facilities for women.
Soccer is emerging as a focal point of dissent in Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich kingdom that despite banning demonstrations by law is struggling to fend off the waves of change sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
Fans are voting with their feet. Not in mass protests -- as those that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen -- but by staying away from matches. What effectively amounts to a fan boycott, is most evident in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The Arab Spring uprisings have pushed back reforms of gender discriminatory laws in the region. It would be ironic if the course of women's rights in one of the most repressive Muslim countries flowed against this trend.
If students were really serious about human rights violators in the Middle East, they'd be holding Saudi Apartheid weeks or Abuse of Arab Women Awareness weeks rather than bashing Israel.
On January 11, Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz issued a historic decree allowing women to be members of the kingdom's previously all-male Shura Council for the first time.
The images of two strong, courageous young Saudi women athletes will forever exist as part of Saudi history. If you listen to the voices of the women interviewed herein, you can hear that a bell of hope and expectation has been rung.
LONDON -- Sarah Attar finished last and more than a half-minute slower than her nearest competitor in the women's 800 meters. Yet hundreds rose to giv...
UPDATE: On Thursday, Manal Al-Sharif clarified on Twitter her reason for not attending the award ceremony in Washington the night before. "Not being i...
The Hayat Mall in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, probably sees a constant stream of religious police, or mutaween, attempting to keep a check on female moralit...
Saudi Arabia is building its first stadium especially designed to allow women who are currently barred from attending soccer matches because of the kingdom's strict public gender segregation to watch games.
Using a man's wife to publicly threaten and blackmail him sounds like plot from a classic (sexist) movie. It's happening to a real-life princess in Saudi Arabia who has been standing up for women.
The future of the Saudi rulers, who represent the most prestigious institution of power in the Muslim lands, is unpredictable. The "unity" of the opposed King and new Crown Prince could turn into open conflict.
The Saudi monarch's decree to give women voting rights for municipal elections in 2015 was generally welcomed as a giant step on the road to reform. However, the celebration could be premature.
American women take for granted, and sometimes even bemoan, the soccer-mom type need for driving themselves and others around on errands. Yet for years, my Saudi friends in America have held out this commonplace activity as a hope.
To say that Saudi King Abdullah's decree to give women the right to vote and become Shoura Council members is a historic moment would be an understatement. The women's suffrage movement is only part of the story.
The seemingly innocuous problem of women's right to drive presents a dilemma for the Saudi monarchy and a threat capable of rocking its theological foundations.
The Prophet may have been too advanced for the mindset of 7th-century men, but his compassion for women is exactly the model that Muslims in the 21st century need to emulate today.
Maha al Qatani settles herself in the driver's seat, adjusts her headscarf, and with a quick prayer turns the key in the ignition. “I'm not nervous,...