What would it take?

Each day, I find myself asking another member of our group what it would take to get him/her to live here. The numbers vary, but almost all are above $100K. This is telling--the very fact that so few of us would even consider working here must indicate that something isn't right in this patch of sand. Consider that the lifestyle would be great--there is almost no crime, the weather is reasonable (though we are only here during spring), the seas are picturesque, the cities clean, multinational firms all over the place, and constant development--but there is something that makes us pause. This is not limited to our group--Egyptians, Indians, Pakistanis, many whom we have met say they are here for the work, and that is all. Is it simply womens' rights? I find being able to swim at a pool that only half of our group can use incredibly unnerving--so much so that I don't like to use it. Instead of standing out like some inky patch in my field of vision, the abaya causes my eye to skip over women--they cease to be what they should rightfully be, and instead just become part of the landscape. It is oppressive, and dangerous--for when objects are much easier to deny a place in society than people. The sparkling developments and shining universities we see each day are meant to portray a country moving away from some distant past. Yet each black robe into which my groupmates must disappear each day signals that this is the present. There is something inherently wrong to my Western sense of self with this cloth entombment. Every boardroom we enter, over every glass of tea, Saudis--invariably educated abroad--relay to us that things are changing. But what stands in the way? It is not Islam. My good friend's wife drives in Somalia, and another friend chooses to let her hair hang free, yet both are good Muslims. Is it culture? Across the Red Sea, Egypt has thousands of years of culture, and women choose what they wear. What have we created here with our addiction to oil? Without oil, would the abaya weigh so heavily on womens' shoulders?

I don't have any answers, and am being biased in my approach. Something in me speaks out against being shown the glitz and glitter without knowing the undercoat--smoking cigars and eating steaks on Saudi riyal is the height of hypocrisy. As is judging a culture with my value set--maybe it is what Saudi women wish, but we won't know that. Maybe change must happen incrementally, but those who wish the status quo always say they are ready to ease the pressure a little, just bit by bit, if only they could. And maybe Saudi is changing--I wouldn't know; it's impossible to know after only a week, a year, a decade. But I do know my price to be here, and it is well over that $100,000.