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Princess Loulwa Al-Faisal sought to dispel the image of Saudi women as “downtrodden slaves to men” that is prevalent in the West. She described the country’s transition from a culture of itinerant tribes, in which women played a central role, to a modern society. Since the Kingdom was unified in 1932, women’s status has been evolving constantly, with considerable gains in education and employment. She asserted that women’s empowerment has occurred and can continue to occur within the framework of shari’a, the bedrock of Saudi government and society. Her remarks indicated that while work remains to be done, the situation for Saudi women is not as bleak as the rest of the world believes.

Princess Loulwa recognized that in order to optimize women’s roles in a modernized Saudi Arabia, it is crucial that they be educated and introduced into the workforce. She cited her mother, the late Queen Effat, as the first to realize these needs and to take action for Saudi women. The Queen took pioneering steps to establish schools for girls and to advocate women’s access to higher education. The Princess stated that now “education is no longer a question for women” and credited educational advances for a “profound change” in women’s status in the last fifty years.

The schooling of women has fostered an increased role for them in the workforce in virtually every sector, particularly in education, social services and medicine. There is a continuing push to increase the number of women entering the fields of business, engineering and the sciences. Princess Loulwa lauded the Saudi government as a key ally in the drive to improve women’s status, noting that the Council of Ministers recently released a nine-point plan for integrating the workforce in the hopes of boosting an already vigorous economy. Thirty percent of individual bank accounts in Saudi Arabia belong to women. Women attend universities, and some own and run businesses. The Princess noted that all of these advances have occurred within a system of shari’a, showing that a religious Islamic state allows women control over their social and financial destinies.

Though her main purpose was to counter the negative image of Saudi Arabia that dominates the mainstream media, the Princess acknowledged that progress remains to be made. Women have been promised suffrage in the next elections, but she said that a wide effort to distribute identity cards to women must be completed before that can happen. Furthermore, she referred to a disparity between urban and rural areas, suggesting that the concerns of women in the cities differ from those of women in the desert. Extremism on both sides of the women’s debate is centered in the cities. She expressed optimism and urged a patient approach when responding to questions regarding women’s rights, including queries on inheritance laws and the law prohibiting women from driving. Princess Loulwa’s remarks portrayed Saudi Arabia as multidimensional and complex. She made it clear that women’s empowerment in Saudi Arabia is a delicate process, saying, “We’re taking our time; we’re getting our way.”