The elusive definition of womens work.
The week's news at a glance.
Saudi Arabia
Abeer Mishkhas
Arab View
It’s official: Women may work in any job that “suits their nature,” said Abeer Mishkhas in Riyadh’s Web-based Arab View. That, at least, is the promise of a new labor law, passed just last week. The problem is, nobody is quite sure what it means. Women already have “limited choices” for jobs in this country, of course. The most ambitious can choose only from teaching or medicine. Will their options now be curtailed even more, as certain fields are defined as being against the female “nature”? And what about men’s nature? In Saudi Arabia, “no woman would work as a construction worker” or a street cleaner. But—“and this is important—no Saudi man would either.” It seems, then, that we should define just what each sex’s nature is. “Maybe then we could start to understand what our men and women can and cannot do.” And who knows? “Maybe then men will give up certain jobs—and women will take them.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Home Depots are the new epicenters of ICE raids
In the Spotlight The chain has not provided many comments on the ongoing raids
-
Why does Trump keep interfering in the NYC mayoral race?
Today's Big Question The president has seemingly taken an outsized interest in his hometown elections, but are his efforts to block Zohran Mamdani about political expediency or something deeper?
-
The pros and cons of banning cellphones in classrooms
Pros and cons The devices could be major distractions