Chapter 1

Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurshipand Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh
Namie TSUJIGAMI

The attention towards women has increased in the current era of ‘reform’ and social and economic‘development’ in Saudi Arabia. The remarkable ongoing top-down reforms have made some people
reconsider the image that women are legally and judicially mistreated, denied political, economic, andsocial participation, and deprived of the freedom of movement. Indeed, Saudi Arabia was, and remains,
a strongly patriarchal society. However, it is important to investigate the nuances of this patriarchy
rather than merely criticise it based on the surface. This chapter aims to disclose the intricacies ofpatriarchy where, on the one hand, women suffer from a lack of employment opportunities, which leads
to a persistent male breadwinner model, and on the other hand, women have become more visible asconsumers. Although they typically are not responsible for their family’s livelihood, women have become
more influential in spending for the family and themselves. This shift within households has also created
opportunities for women to launch businesses that cater to women. The institutionalisation of female
entrepreneurship and women-led consumption signal the possibility of changing gender relationships
within the society.

I. Limitations of the Rentier State Theory
The rentier state theory (RST), since its introduction by Beblawi and Luciani [1987], has been a populartheory to understand the political economy of oil-producing countries in the Arabian Peninsula. It
has been considered by many scholars as a powerful explanatory concept of the relationship between
state and society in Arab oil states. RST, however, faced criticism for being deterministic. The same
critique is applicable to the RST theorists’ view regarding the status of women. Michael Ross, an RST
theorist, investigated the problems of oil-rich countries, including authoritarianism and the impact of
economic instability. He extends this argument to women’s status in oil-rich countries and contends
that ‘(t)he persisitence of patriarchy in the Middle East has … much to do with the region’s oil-based
economy’ [Ross 2008: 120]. According to its claim, girls’ education and women’s economic and political
3

The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Society

participation are limited in rentier states. Saudi women have faced multiple disadvantages in terms ofeducation, as well as labour and political participation. Girls’ education began in 1960, and women’slabour participation remained in single digit percentages at least until the 2000s, based on the available
data: 4.16 percent in 1979-1980 [Alyamani 1985], and 14.15 percent in 1990 [The World Bank].
However, it should be noted that the gender order itself is fluid, and thus always open to change, as issuggested by Michel Foucault [1980]. For example, the fluidity of women’s economic activities has
been visible in Saudi Arabia’s history since the state’s formation in 1932. Al-Baadi’s [1982] extensive
work on women’s history in Saudi Arabia indicates that women in the Arabian Peninsula during thepre-oil era engaged in societal and/or economic activities, which ranged from taking care of livestockand growing agricultural crops to selling handicrafts at the market. However, their participation inmainstream economic activities receded after Saudi Arabia started exporting oil. These women moved
to cities in the process of modernisation and lost these roles as a result. This could be attributed to thefact that the economy did not require an expensive national labour force, as foreign labourers, who werewilling to work even under appalling circumstances, could be hired instead [Babar 2017; Kamrava andBabar 2012; Kapiszewski 2006; Randeree 2012].1 However, this does not imply that all women stopped
participating in economic activities. Some wealthy women, primarily the female members of the royalfamily, continued to invest in businesses. Sharaf Sabri [2001] elaborates on the business and investment
activities that men and women from royal and non-royal families engaged in. According to his study,
women invested in real estate and businesses rather than directly manage wholesale or retail businesses
like their male counterparts.
A limitation of the RST is that it presupposes a status quo. It has not adapted to explain the changes
in the political economies of the Gulf, including social changes [Gray 2011]. This critique is also
applicable to Ross’s work, which overlooks the socio-economic changes of the Gulf in general andwomen’s status in particular. In fact, Ross’s arguments were immediately criticised by several scholars
in an issue of Gender and Politics (Issue of Volume 5, Number 4, 2009). Subsequently, scepticism arose
among scholars of gender studies in the Middle East, as some resource-abundant economies in the Arab
Gulf states displayed higher labour participation of women than other countries in the Middle East
[Buttorff and Welborne 2015]. The evolving change is more significant in the field of girls’ education.
Natasha Ridge’s [2014] research discloses the rapid advancement of female education that progressed
to outnumber male counterparts in tertiary education in the Gulf states. However, it is still true thatpatriarchy persistently pervades the Arab Gulf societies (like many other societies in the world). Yet thechanges noted indicate social changes where women have functioned as the agents of change.
This chapter, by examining the dynamisms of social changes through women’s consumption
and business, aims to: 1) explore the relationship among female entrepreneurs, women’s influencein spending and consumption, and socio-economic changes since the 2000s; 2) identify female
entrepreneurs’ strategies and tactics, from empirical data, to establish and continue businesses; and 3)
answer unsettled questions of how increased female entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia destabilises the4Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

gender order in the public and private spheres. By analysing this phenomenon, the study attempts tounderstand the gender order and institutionalised entrepreneurship-consumption relationship by referring
to Deniz Kandiyoti’s [1988] claims of patriarchal bargaining. Kandiyoti’s patriarchal bargaining implies
that women strategically take the optimal decisions within modern patriarchy, which indicates that they
consciously avoided working outside when the cash economy was established. However, this study
takes into consideration a highly consumerised society, where the cash economy is considered as a basic
premise. The strategies and tactics that Saudi women (both entrepreneurs and consumers) use will beillustrated and compared with Kandiyoti’s argument.

II. Research Method
The research method for this study involves a combination of primary and secondary data. The primarydata includes the author’s interviews of Saudi women with emphasis on those who engage in business.
The author began fieldwork in March 2000, while employed at the Embassy of Japan in Riyadh. The
fieldwork primarily focused on garnering the experiences of Saudi women. Interview is semi-structured
to tease out the details needed for a more sophisticated understanding of both female motivations andexperiences as consumers and entrepreneurs.

III. Expansion of Commercial Infrastructure and Involvementof Royal Families
Shopping opportunities remained fairly limited within the Kingdom throughout the twentieth century.
Motoko Katakura’s [1977] fieldwork in the 1970s at Wadi Fatima, a western town in Saudi Arabia,
demonstrated people’s simple daily lives away from consumerism. Helen Lackner [1999] conducted
fieldwork in the 1970s and pointed out the emergence of consumerism, but it could not compete withother prosperous big cities in the world. This continued till the early 2000s. In early 2000, when theauthor arrived in Saudi Arabia, there were only a few malls in central Riyadh, including the Al-Aqariyah
Mall and Sahara Mall. The ‘modern’ scenery of Riyadh was beyond what the author had expected basedon accounts that had primarily created a distorted image of desert, oil, and religious fanaticism. Instead,
Riyadh came across as a modern but modest city and as the capital of an oil-rich country. Furthermore,
there were a few brand shops such as Tiffany and Gucci on Olaya Street, the main street of Riyadh.
Faisaliyah Mall and Al-Mamlakah Shopping Centre, both which later became key buildings of central
Riyadh, were under construction at that time.
On one hand, sexual harassment at shops was a frequent occurrence as female clothes and lingerie
shops were staffed by male foreign workers. On the other hand, the fear from frequent patrols by
the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (often known as ‘haiʾa’, whichmeans ‘committee’ in Arabic) in the malls and supermarkets often discouraged people, both Saudis
5The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Society

and expatriates, to shop in these places, and therefore they instead sought out shopping, cultural, andentertainment opportunities while travelling abroad. Manama, the capital and commercial centre of
Bahrain, was frequently visited by Saudis and Saudi-based expatriates, as it offered a wide range ofentertainment opportunities, including alcohol and sex-related entertainment that primarily attracted
men. Products and services catered to women were often offered from home to home so that female
clients were not hampered by patrols or sexual harassment. The restaurants and cafés in Riyadh weresegregated into a singles section, often the main part of the restaurant/café, while a separate family
section was located in a far corner of the same establishment so that it was not easily visible. It was
implicitly communicated that the family section of the restaurant catered only to ‘families’, thus for awoman to dine out alone was difficult and a rare occurrence.
However, a change was observed in Riyadh in the early the 2000s. The opening of two large luxury
shopping malls, Al-Faisaliyah Mall and Al-Mamlakah Shopping Centre at Al-Olaya Street, Riyadh’s mainstreet, triggered a construction rush of shopping malls and other commercial complexes in the city. Thechange was presumably triggered by multiple socio-economic factors. First, the Seventh Development
Plan, 2000–2004, introduced privatisation and diversification of the economy as priorities, along withother economic reforms in preparation for accession to the WTO [Niblock 2008]. It is important to notethe strong involvement of the royal family in the privatisation of the economy, not only in Saudi Arabia
but in the Arab Gulf region more widely. The Saudi royal family has been engaged in private businesses
since they were granted permission to do so in the 1960s [Sabri 2001]. In the early 2000s, groups ofbusiness elites within the royal family pioneered the development of urban spaces (as will be discussed
later). Matthew Gray [2018] called the Gulf-specific model of ‘entrepreneurial state capitalism’, inwhich ‘rent provides the funds that create and underwrite state-owned firms’ [Gray 2018: 41]. Under
entrepreneurial state capitalism, the ruling elites and its clients and supporters are enabled to ‘manage
the economy, allocate and share wealth’ [Gray 2018: 40]. Construction of the new urban spaces also
represented state capitalism, as not a few of them are owned and operated by the royal family. Therefore,
an odd combination of economic liberalisation and state control were at play in the region. Second,
Dubai, the Saudi’s neighbouring emirate, dramatically achieved service-based economic development,
which established an example for the Kingdom and other Gulf states [Hvidt 2009]. Third, the early
2000s were a critical turning point for the Kingdom, as it suffered harsh criticism from abroad as abreeding ground for terrorism after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. The Saudi government
hurried to implement socio-political reforms to address the problem of Islamic extremists [Cordesman2003]. Socio-political liberalisation was multifaceted and consisted of reforms in education, judiciary,and political procedures, as is exemplified by the introduction of local elections. Among them, thedemystification of women was a key targeted transformation [Al-Rasheed 2013]. Women began to be
represented as symbols of the nation, contrary to the previous era when they are hid in the private sphere.
Lastly, the early-mid 2000s was a period when international oil prices were historically high and thishelped to increase the Saudi nationals’ purchasing power, which resulted in developing the habit of6Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

conspicuous consumption. During the process of transformation into a consumer-based society, Saudi
women came to be deemed as an influential group that displayed consumption [Assad 2008].
Along with this ideological transformation within the ruling elites, remarkable changes were also
seen in the urban space. The Al-Mamlakah shopping centre was equipped with a women-only floor
known as the ‘Ladies Kingdom’. This ensured that female customers could shop comfortably without
any intervention by the haiʾa or sexual harassment by male sales staff. It was also a new development
for the malls in Saudi Arabia to have fitting rooms on the women-only floors. Al-Faisaliyah, which was
only equipped with a small female-only space, designated a certain period as ‘family only time’, which
was intended for families to enjoy shopping without being bothered by male youths, many of whom
supposedly came to malls to pick up girls. By the mid-2010s, numerous malls were built in Riyadh.
Some were family oriented (e.g., Gornata), while others cater to the rich, career-oriented women (e.g.,
Centria). In any country, malls primarily identify women as the more important group of customers, asevidenced by the fact that a majority of the shoppers are women [Haiyan and Jasper 2004]. However, thiswas a new development for Saudi Arabia as women so far had been deprived of visiting public spaces.
In this feminisation of commercial infrastructure and the subsequent creation of women’s publicsphere, members of the House of Saud played pivotal roles. The Al-Faisaliyah Mall and the complex
are owned by the Al-Faisaliyah Group, a family conglomerate formed by the sons of King Faisal. AlMamlakah shopping centre is a property of Prince Waleed bin Talal, who is grandson of the first Saudi
Arabian king and is known as ‘Warren Buffett of Arabia’ for his business and investment activities.
In the context of Saudi Arabia, the involvement of the royal family members in the economy wasessential for the success of economic liberalisation and diversification to convince and conciliate theconservative or religious group of people. It is presumably due to this involvement it was not possible forthe haiʾa members to enter the new women-only floors of the Al-Mamlakah shopping centre.It became
particularly rare after haiʾa was banned from questioning, detaining anyone suspected of a crime in2016.2
What is implicit here is that these business elites, including the royal family members, sparked thegrowth of the feminisation of commercial infrastructure. Malls were the stimulus for development ofurban space. With the development of shopping malls in the city, main streets such as Al-Tahriya also
grew as stylish café or restaurant streets as they provided space for men and women to meet their friends.

IV. Feminisation of Commercial Infrastructure
Feminisation of commercial infrastructure took place in terms of time and space in shopping malls, aswell as, cafes and restaurants. When Al-Faisaliyah Mall first opened, an attempt was made to segregate
the time by allocating specific slots for single, a man or a group of men, and families. This was because
they did not have a special floor for women like the ‘Ladies Kingdom’ at the Al-Mamlakah shopping
centre, and ‘Panorama for Women’ at the Panorama Mall. Single males or male-only groups were banned
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The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Society

from entering the mall during the time designated for families.
As women grew as consumers, commercial infrastructure diversified and feminised both within
and outside the shopping malls. Development of commercial infrastructure, in general, offered morequasi ‘public space’ [Le Renard 2014], for both genders. Some shopping malls, including the AlFaisaliyah, stopped the practice of allotting different times and removed the partition wall between
the single and family section in the food court by the early 2010s. The same was observed at the AlMamlakah shopping centre. The food court was open for everyone while the women-only floor wasmaintained at the top of the building. Segregation and comingling took place simultaneously within the
shopping malls, so that they could cater to both groups of people, that is, those who prefer segregationand comingling. Additionally, the gradual transformation of restaurants and cafés was also seen. A
large number of restaurants and cafés opened in shopping malls and these catered to groups of women
rather than families. The top floor restaurants of Centria Mall, one of the high-end malls in the city,usually full of working women in the evening, has been featured on National Geographic [Gorney
2016]. This demonstrates a visible difference from the past, wherein the family section of restaurant orcafé supposedly catered to families consisting of men, women, and children.3 On the stylish streets of
Riyadh, a similar change could be observed. A large number of restaurants and cafés opened there andthey primarily catered to female groups rather than to male-only groups or families. They did not havemandated partition walls or booths for each family, and offered simple partition boards for privacy, whenrequested by the customers. Interestingly, many of the restaurants popular with high-end customers
did not have a section for single people and therefore the family section became the main part of therestaurant or café in the urban space. Many cafés and restaurants practically stopped the partition by thetime the rule for the mandatory gender-based segregation was officially lifted in late 2019.

V. Women’s Networks and Business Opportunities
In Saudi Arabia, generally, men and women have separate networks. Women build, strengthen, andreshape their networks by frequently visiting each other. Their network comprises of relatives fromthe natal family, including grandmothers, their mother (sometimes including mother’s co-wife or cowives), aunts, sisters, and cousins. Many of them meet regularly on weekend afternoons and evenings,
at one of their houses or at the istirāḥa, which is a resting place in the suburbs. Soraya Altorki explains
the role of wafāʾ in Saudi society, where the mobility of women is restricted. Wafāʾ denotes the ties thatwomen forge by extending their social network through social visits beyond the limit of their household.
Until the 1950s, these social visits were limited to married women, while single girls met only closefriends and kinswomen, at least in the western part of Saudi Arabia [Altorki 1986]. However, women incities today enjoy a high level of mobility compared to the situation in the 1980s when Altorki’s work
was published. This is largely due to the availability of vehicles and expatriate chauffeurs hired byhouseholds. More recently, the ban on women’s driving has also been lifted. Even if they do not drive,8

Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

an increasing number of women use ride-hailing services such as Uber and Careem. This means that
more women, both married and single, are able to build their network inside and outside of their kin, byvisiting each other’s house or by meeting in restaurants or cafés. This increased and expanded network
beyond the kinship is augmented by the transformation of restaurants and cafés that offer family sections
rather than single sections, as gatherings among relatives are usually held at home while gatherings withfriends are often at restaurants and cafés. Although women’s familial network forged through social visits
is persistently important in this modernisation process, more and more women seem to be ‘empowering
personal connections outside the family network’ [Doumato 2003: 250] by attending schools, colleges,
and universities. Expanded education opportunities for young women has let them create new networks
beyond their tribes and kins, and that are often maintained through socializing at restaurants or cafés, ofcourse upon the approval of their parents when unmarried.
Stylish interiors and meticulous service are common traits of popular restaurants and cafés. Suchideas are often provided and realised by female entrepreneurs who better understand the subtleties of
the needs of women as compared to the male counterparts. In a segregated society, where masculinity or
femininity are highly structured and valued, and thus confusion or deviation is carefully avoided, only
women fully understand the needs and desires of other women.
Businesses catering to female consumers expanded beyond restaurant and other highly genderspecific sectors such as apparel and fashion. Luthan Hotel and Spa, a women-only hotel and spa,
established in Riyadh in 2008, is a symbolic example. At the hotel, female guests did not have to wear
an Abaya or worry about the male gaze as the hotel only allows female guests and only employs female
staff. Guests can also enjoy various services including massages, beautification, and sports activities
at the spa adjacent to the hotel. According to the author’s interview with the female manager, guests
and members of the hotel and spa are primarily working women and not wealthy housewives.4 These
women pursue beauty and health related services with the financial freedom that they gain throughtheir employment. The fact that the facility is frequented by working women has also been mentioned
in the TripAdvisor reviews. Reviewers seem to be from a variety of places, including Cairo, Dubai,
London, Lyon, and the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Whilst foreigners enjoy the different cultureof staying in a women-only hotel during business trips, locals enjoy safety without the requirement of aguardian. This is further evidence, along with that from food establishments, of the bipolarisation, into
both segregation and comingling, in the Kingdom’s commercial sphere.

VI. Accelerated Female BusinessAmong the Arab Gulf States, Saudi Arabia has not ardently fostered female business owners or executive
members. According to Alrubaishi [2017: 230], who conducted a study on enterprise succession plans,
female business owners account for only 12 percent of the entrepreneurs in Saudi Arabia. Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor’s research reveals that the total entrepreneurial activity (TEA)5 in Saudi Arabia
9

The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Society

is 14.7% for men and 8.5% for women. As compared to the other Arab Gulf states, the gender gap in
TEA is extremely high in Saudi Arabia. The TEA in the United Arab Emirates is 10.9% for men and10.1% for women, while in Qatar the same are 8.6% and 8.4%, respectively [Elam, Brysh and Greene
2019: 74–75].
From a chronological perspective, the number of female entrepreneurs has been steadily increasing
since the 1960s. In 1962, only 400 women are registered with the Chamber of Commerce in Riyadh, instark contrast with their 44,000 male counterparts the same year [Abd al-Hay 1982: 243]. The numberof commercial registrations by women is estimated to have grown to 5,000 in Riyadh and 4,000 in Jidda
by 2004 [Hassan 2004]. The local newspaper reported that it further rose by 35% between 2007 and2017 [Arab News 2017].
This can be partially attributed to the women’s high unemployment rate which was 30.9% in 2018
[General Authority for Statistics 2018: 76]. Serious unemployment rate for women indicates insufficientjob opportunities that directly or indirectly encourage women to launch business by themselves. The
GEM Report’s findings also support this argument by reinforcing that Saudi women who started abusiness out of necessity rose from 5.9% in 2015–2016 to 38.9% in 2018–2019 [Élam Brysh and Greene
2019: 101]. It is arguable that an increasing number of women who engage in business are driven bynecessity, trying to earn an income that may not be obtainable through employment.
The Saudi economy was seriously impacted by the oil price crash in late 2014. Per capita grossnational income fell from 25,550 USD in 2014 to 19,990 in 2017 [The World Bank]. In addition to theshrinking income on an average, the income gap among the Saudis is also wide. Only 10.5% of the
population received a double of the average income (13,630.9 USD) in 2018, while 31.3% received lessthan half of it [Jawale 2020].
The Saudi government has pursued processes of nationalisation of the workforce (known as‘Saudization’) for several decades, and further accelerated by the nitaqat (which means ‘ranges’ in
Arabic) program6 and Vision 2030. However, the scheme faced challenges that accrued from various
issues including the mismatch between the education system and the need of the labour market[Alshanbri, Khalfan and Maqsoon 2015]. Furthermore, private firms that had never hired womenreported that they had to invest in a high upfront cost to hire women [Domash 2017].7 These additionalcosts would have been a hindrance for private companies to recruit women.
It could be argued that female entrepreneurs emerged due to this economic and labour environment.
Hattab [2012] analysed the tendencies and characteristics of female entrepreneurs in the Middle East
based on the GEM report, and sheds light on the rise of female entrepreneurs despite a persistent sexual
division of labour and the limited job opportunities for women in the region. According to the study,
women in non-oil-producing countries, like Egypt and Yemen, lack working opportunities, which
encourages women to engage in businesses to contribute towards the family’s income. From thesecases, we can assume that women in the region establish businesses because of the socio-economic
disadvantages specific to their gender. Such motivation could also be applicable for Saudi women as
10

Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

they also suffered due to a lack of job opportunities along with worsening economic conditions after the
sharp fall in oil prices in 2014. Even in the oil boom era prior around 2004-2008, female urban dwellers
expressed concern about sharp inflation and the rising cost of living. While some of them indicated aninterest in starting a side business to contribute to the household income, others were already involvedin business. It is evident that economic circumstances, regardless of boom or slump, encourage people
to engage in business, albeit for different reasons.
While Saudi female entrepreneurs have to face challenges and constraints similar to those ofother Arab women entrepreneurs, this study suggests that women also have certain advantages. Hattab[2012] states that Arab women’s shared disadvantage in networking due to male-dominant informal
networks having such importance in Middle Eastern societies. However, this study puts forth that Saudi
female entrepreneurs take advantage of the sex-segregation of society in terms of networking, which
subsequently contributes to business building. Female entrepreneurs were not able to establish a businessindependently because, until 2018, they required a male guardian’s permission (Gulf Business 2018).
However, as discussed, women usually build and maintain their network within the women-only society,thus, they can make the best of sex-segregation if they intend to engage in women-oriented businesses.
The advantages of women establishing businesses targeting women have been demonstrated throughseveral Montijoon Producers Exhibitions organised by the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry
since 2013. The third exhibition held in December 2015, which the author attended, had 622 booths
exhibiting and selling a variety of products and services by female entrepreneurs who work from home.
The event showcased a wide range of businesses, including food and beverages (including catering),
garments, interior accessories, cosmetics, art, and childcare services. In all these fields, it was apparent
that the products and services presented in the exhibition primarily catered to women. The entrepreneurs
seemed to capitalise on their identity as women who understood the needs of other women.
Widespread female entrepreneurial activities not only stem from the efforts made by womenalone, but also because of the support and encouragement by the government. According to the General
Authority for Statistics in Saudi Arabia, the female unemployment rate gradually grew from 15.8 percent
in 1999 to 30.9 percent in 2018 by contrast to 7.5 percent for male unemployment rate in 2018 [General
Authority for Statistics 2018a: 71]. It clearly indicates an increase in female job seekers within a few
decades .
Although the government has accelerated attempts to nationalise the workforce since the 1990s, thesituation of job creation has worsened rather than improved. For the government, encouraging start-ups,
particularly home businesses for women, is a convenient way to enable them to earn money without
necessarily endangering their perceived role as a mother and wife or encouraging them to mingle withmale strangers.8
The government’s willingness to support female entrepreneurs is also reflected in the reforms thatare in accordance with Saudi Vision 2030. The Monshaat, General Authority for Small and Medium
Enterprises, is a government organisation established in 2016 to support and develop the small and
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The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Society

medium enterprises (SME) sector to meet the agenda of fostering SMEs in Saudi Arabia for 2030.
According to the author’s interview with the Monshaat, gender mainstreaming is a key agenda. Thisimplies that the entity is attempting to fill gender gaps among small and medium-sized entrepreneurs.9
Female entrepreneurs are supposedly able to transgress the presupposed disadvantages by venturing
into businesses. They are able to not only earn money but also acquire skills and experiences throughthe business. This should also have an impact on their status within the household, as is discussed laterin the case study.

VII. The Growth of Women as Consumers and its Impacts
It is evident that the number of female entrepreneurs could not have increased without the growth of
consumers. The Saudi economic liberalisation as of the 2000s underwent multiple stages of development
efforts. Female entrepreneurship accelerated in conjunction with the growth of per capita income andliving standard of individuals, and there was a subsequent growth of female consumers, following at least
partly from the high oil prices over the mid-2000s. Saudis, and particularly Saudi women, were raised
as consumers due to the socio-economic changes that included higher female educational achievement
and a gradual increase in labour market participation, while maintaining men’s place as bread winners.
Saudi Arabia’s girls’ education began in 1960, yet it rapidly grew to a level that an ‘adverse genderdivide’ [Ridge 2014] was observed. The number of female graduates from public universities in theyear 2017 far exceeds that of male graduates, at 125,435 and 87,546 respectively [General Authority for
Statistics 2018b).10
These dynamics are arguably bolstering women’s decision-making power within the household.
Yavas, Babakus and Delener [1994] disclosed that, 1) an educated woman tends to jointly make decisions
regarding family purchases with her husband and 2) working wives tend to have a stronger influenceon family purchase decisions as compared to non-working wives. Research findings clearly indicate
the power of educated and working women on household spending. This is also supported by a surveyof 160 working women in Jidda conducted by Nora Almosaed [2008], which investigated the nexus of
power and money, and subsequent inequality within Saudi households. Almosaed found that livelihood
maintenance is still the responsibility of men among a majority of the respondents’ households, yet mostworking women financially contribute to the household. The study reveals that working women tend
to cover the cost of their own and children’s clothes, recreation, school expenses, and food.11 Similarly,
the Saudi Youth Development Survey Bulletin 2019, a report based on a survey of over 7,700 Saudi
youth from different regions and conducted by the General Authority for Statistics, clarified that the
responsibilities of men include covering the costs pertaining to marriage and housing while women help
in livelihood provision. The main reason for men to save their income is for the sake of marriage (34.82
percent, vis-à-vis 0.4 percent for women), housing (19.38 percent vis-à-vis 7.27 percent for women),whereas for women buying luxuries (14.33 percent) and investment/ financing private business (12.38
12Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

percent) are the main reasons for saving their income [General Authority for Statistics 2019: 50]. This
imbalance in responsibilities clearly demonstrates that women save a share of their income in order toconsume, compared to men who are responsible for sustainance.
The persistent model where the male member is the breadwinner, and women take minimal
responsibility for sustenance, ensures that women have a larger capacity to save for purchase. As
Almoased’s study suggests, working women are inclined to buy products and services associated withdaily necessities. From these studies and reports, it is assumed that consumption patterns have shifted
and women have become more influential in family and individual spending. The new consumption
patterns also offers opportunities for women to launch women-oriented businesses. Female entrepreneurs
identify business possibilities by stimulating the demand of women.

VIII. Examples of Female Entrepreneurship
Huda (anonym) identified a business opportunity based on the emerging purchasing power of women.
As a married woman with children, she had been working as an administrator at a college till she set up
a confectionary factory in the drawing room of her flat in the late 2000s.12 Born into a merchant family
in Nejd (central Arabian Peninsula) around 1970, she always had entrepreneurial ideas. Her brothers had
inherited businesses from their father. However, being a woman, Huda was not considered a successor,
although she was the only one amongst her sisters who had a university degree. While her husband wasan academic working with a public university, she always felt that the salary that they both earned was
not enough. By investing a part of the money inherited by her father, she began hiring some female
foreign workers through a maid recruitment company, and began selling kleija, which are traditional
cookie-like sweets made of wheat, to shops and individuals. Taking advantage of the boom, her businesssteadily grew over the next few years, and by the mid-2010s, she decided to set up a pastry shop where
she could sell both western-style confectionary and traditional Arab sweets like kunafa, made of cheeseand shredded pastry. She decorated the shop with fancy colours and designs to attract female shoppers.
Her pastries were also designed to look fancy and cute for the same reason. As she had expected, the shop
drew more female than male customers. Within five years, she had to move to a new location due to theplanned metro construction in Riyadh. The area around her shop was barricaded for construction, and it
became inconvenient for customers to stop there. For her, this was a good thing as she was considering
opening a café or restaurant adjacent to the shop. She began looking for a new place and was able toopen a two-storied café and restaurant in early 2016. This new shop, in a stylish area, again drew more
female customers than male ones. She hired some dozens of workers including skilled chef and cooks,
waiters, shop keepers, and Saudi female PR manager who promoted her shop and restaurant via social
networking services. Her business got off on the right foot: she attended food exhibition in Dubai inearly 2017, accompanied by the chef, to look for companies that produce suitable ingredients for her
pastries. However, after a while, she decided to close the shop, and move to another location due to the13The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Societyhigh rent. In an interview in March 2019, Huda stated that she had never gone into the black since she
started her business13. It is unclear if she ever made a profit from her business. However, it is evident thatthe business was severely hit like other retail businesses partly because of the introduction of the five
percent value added tax at the beginning of 2018. The property she rented for expansion was quite large,
and therefore the rent was high. In early 2020, she opened a smaller shop without a café or restaurant.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Saudi Arabia, she had to abide by the rules, including limiting the
opening hours. She frequently posts sale advertisements on the shop’s Instagram page.
The second example is not that of a typical entrepreneur as Wafa (anonym) did not start her own
business from scratch. Her career started as a school principal and she became the largest shareholderof the international schools. However, her case is discussed here because her business and investments
arose from her experience, which led to her current leading role in the women’s circle of the Riyadh
Chamber of Commerce. Wafa is the biggest shareholder of international schools located in Riyadh,
Jidda, and Makka.14 She married when she was seventeen years old and accompanied her husband to the
US as he received government scholarship to study there. While they were in the US for seven years,
Wafa also obtained two master’s degrees. As a specialist in art and design, she started teaching at a
women’s university when she returned from the US, but left the job two years to become the principalof an international school. She was the first female principal of the international school in Saudi Arabia.
However, for her, undertaking the role of the principal at a school was not very new or odd as hermother had been the first Saudi female principal at a local school. Therefore, she had a role model.
While working as the principal, she decided to move to the management side and set up companies tooperate international schools where she invested her resources. Apparently, she felt the need to import
American and British school curricula to Saudi Arabia from her own experience of staying in the US.
Based on Almosaed’s findings, working women play an important role in decision-making regardingchildren’s education. This means that households with double income are more likely to show an interestin paid education, which is considered to provide high-quality education to children. In this sense, allof Wafa’s ideas, careers, and investments fit the tendency of family spending in which women’s voices
are considered.
Lubna (anonym), the owner of dress shops in Jidda, has more experience in business than the othertwo businesswomen.15 Like Huda, she was born into a merchant family in Jidda. Her grandfather was arenowned businessman who engaged in trading primary commodities such as steel, wood, and foodstuffs.
He was also known for cooperating with Abdulaziz Al Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, during thestate formation period. However, when his sons took over the business, it led to power struggles and thebusiness collapsed. The third generation, including Lubna, did not inherit money or business assets, but
did inherit some real estate. Lubna, using the profit of this inherited real estate, started selling dresses
to women from her home until she opened a boutique in a shopping mall around 1989. Dresses are inhigh demand in Saudi Arabia as Saudis tend to have big wedding parties and the size of the party can
include 1,000 people. The invitees are expected to wear gorgeous dress as well as jewelry. When Lubna
14

Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

got the opportunity to open a women-only boutique for dresses, she set it up with only UK£1,000,
which means she started the business from scratch. However, she was not allowed to open the shop
under her own name, as this was not permitted at that time. However, when a haiʾa member visited herboutique, she suggested that women’s lingerie should be sold by female shopkeepers rather than male
shopkeepers, to maintain the segregation of the sexes. After this conversation with the haiʾa member,she was allowed to run the shop under her name. In doing this, she negotiated the boundaries of female
businesses in how she operated the dress shop. Her business gradually grew, and she was able to open
as many as six boutiques in different cities in Saudi Arabia (three of them were closed at the time ofinterview due to the recession). She is a pioneer female entrepreneur in Saudi Arabia, who not only
understood but also stimulated women’s needs by taking advantage of women’s networks. The storyof convincing haiʾa members also indicates that convincing conservative men was an additional taskthat these pioneer women had to take to change their business environment. Indeed, women’s lingerie
shopkeepers saw male foreign workers replaced with Saudi women in 2011, following a sustained effort
by women towards this outcome. Lubna’s experience was replicated by her daughter, a garment designer
who owns a dress-abaya shop with a restaurant. Like Huda, Lubna and her daughter suffered due to therecession since the mid 2010s, they had to reduce the prices of the dresses, and half of Wafa’s boutiques
had to be closed. This is one of the shared problems that Saudi female entrepreneurs face as they tend toenter the retail sector, they are immediately hit when the economy stagnates. The introduction of a fivepercent value added tax in 2018 which was further raised in July 2020 to fifteen percent, in addition to
the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to severe troubles for these entrepreneurs.
In contrast to the entrepreneurs who took advantage of sex-segregated society, there has emergedin the last couple of decades or so, less-gendered businesses that were also established by female
entrepreneurs. Sara, who started her career as schoolteacher, set up her business in the field of outfit
production in 2002. Her current core business is producing military clothes, in collaboration withforeign partners, to protect against chemical weapons, for which she receives support from the Saudi
government.16 Additionally, her company manufactures spare parts for aircraft and military vehicles.
This case makes us rethink the advantage that female entrepreneurs’ have in women-oriented businesses.
Sara’s economic activity is often featured in Saudi government-run television. These TV programs
typically introduce her stressing her uniqueness: for example, one programme introduced her by sayingthat she is ‘the first Saudi female investor in the field of military-related manufacturing’ (YouTube 2016).
While her business is indeed new and unique among female entrepreneurs, it is not something that is
feasible for all female entrepreneurs to do, considering her qualification in a rare field.
These cases of Saudi female entrepreneurs are limited, due to space constraints, however as Sara’s
case illustrates especially strongly, new types of female entrepreneurs have emerged who are engaged inless gendered businesses, including in areas where men have traditionally had exclusive or overwhelming
dominance. The examples also prove that female entrepreneurs are not without agency, and continuously
negotiate to expand their business. However, as can be observed from the way Sara is introduced in
15

The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Society

the TV programs − as ‘unique and new’ − it is still uncommon for women to launch businesses beyond
the circle of women. For the majority of businesswomen, it was more realistic to engage in businesses
that can be done within the women’s network. Even then, they have often had to face challenges andconstraints that arise simply by virtue of being women.

IX. Conclusion
This chapter explored the feminisation of commercial infrastructure in Riyadh from the 2000s, and theconcomitant growth of women as consumers and entrepreneurs in the urban space. Such changes werepossible due to the implicit but vital role played by the royal conglomerate involvement and government
policies to make women visible. The commercial infrastructure, regardless of being developed in the
direction of mingling or more profound sex segregation, provided a quasi-public space for women. Highend cafés and shopping malls primarily attracted educated working women who had excess cash as they
are not responsible for sustenance even though they earn. As these women became target groups in theretail and dining industry, the infrastructure altered to fit the customers. In the food and dining sector, forexample, in the past a single section of restaurants played the overwhelming role, however today mostof the top restaurants and cafés in urban spaces have only family sections that are mostly occupied byprofessional/career women who can afford to dine there using their own means.
Similarly, it is evident that women grew as indispensable consumer-reinforced female entrepreneurs
and became involved in businesses catering to women. The number of female entrepreneurs has steadily
increased. These women tend to start a business to cater to other women, as in a sex segregated society,
it is women who best understand the needs and priorities of women consumers. Businesswomen havesought business opportunities among women as they could take advantage of their networks by so doing.
However, their tendency in entering the retail sector makes them vulnerable when the economy tumbles
into recession, as has been demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020.
This noted, the study also points out that female entrepreneurs are not necessarily constrained torunning women-oriented businesses. The cases of these entrepreneurs should also be considered for
future research; however, it is also suggestive from the way these entrepreneurs are represented in the
media that they are unique and new.
Socio-economic development does not necessarily undo sex-segregation in Saudi Arabia, nor does it
subvert the male breadwinner model. Women are not usually responsible for the sustenance of the family,
even if they earn their own income. This has created synergy between entrepreneurship and women-led
consumption/spending.
In Kandiyoti’s argument, women in modern patriarchy typically choose not to work to avoid the
double burden of family and work. For these women, it was not tactically right to earn cash at theprice of losing respect from the family. Contrary to the society that Kandiyoti observed, contemporary
Saudi society’s premise is consumer based, where women and families are looking for new sources
16

Institutionalisation of Female Entrepreneurship and Consumption in Sex-segregated Riyadh

of income. Moreover, in a consumerised society, having a say in spending implies also having power.
Thus, knowledge and education directly corelate with power itself. Women, partly because of fewer
working opportunities than their male counterparts, have been the disproportionate beneficiaries of thegovernment’s investment in education. Often with more advanced degrees than their male partners,
women exercise more power in making decisions regarding family spending than they have in the past,even while they ensure that the male partner maintains the responsibility for overall family sustenance.

Notes
1

Importantly, it was not only national females but also national males who were replaced by foreign labourers[Randeree 2012].

2

I think that the government did not unilaterally decided to purge hai ʾa, but that the residents, both Saudis andexpats, exposed the haiʾa’s wrongdoing on SNS promoted the government’s decision. It will be discussed elsewhereas it is not essential to this argument.

3

On a critical note, while default configuration of family was as such, the staff at restaurants allowed prima faciefamilies to enter and dine regardless whether they looked like nuclear family or extended family, however, I wasoften not allowed to dine alone at the family section of the restaurants. At the same time, I never faced problems
when I was accompanied by four or five male colleagues, who were mostly in the same age group as mine, to dineout at the family section.

4

Author’s interview with the manager in December 2015 in Riyadh.

5

According to the GEM Report, Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) is defined as ‘the percentage of the adultworking-age population, aged 18–64, who are either in the process of starting a new business but have not paid
wages for more than three months (nascent entrepreneurship), or have businesses older than three months but
younger than 42 months (early-stage business activity)’.

6

Nitaqat is a Saudization policy started in 2011. The purpose of the program is to absorb Saudi job seekers. Throughclassifying the private sector companies within ‘ranges’, it sets penalties including limiting labor visas on foreign
nationals on companies that fail to employ designated ratio of Saudis. It is aimed to create six million jobs by 2030
[Alshanbri, Khalfan and Maqsood 2015]7

The report claims this high up-front investment resulted in continual female employment (Domash 2015). It shouldbe true for some companies. However, the author of this article does not agree with this argument as a whole as has
been demonstrated by the statistics on high unemployment among women in Saudi Arabia.

8

The government’s encouragement of female entrepreneurship is also demonstrated by a booklet published anddistributed at the exhibition site by the Former Ministry of Social Affairs (currently Ministry of Labor and Social
Development). The booklet is a directory that lists more than five thousand manufacturing home businesses
operated by women.

910

The authors’ interview with Monshaat on 8 December, 2019 in Riyadh.
Number of graduates here are extracted from the ‘University’s Total’, in Table 4-7 which only counts the numberof graduates from public universities and excludes private higher education, technical, and vocational training andspecialised colleges like military faculty and industrial faculty.

11

The author’s preliminary online survey conducted among over two hundred Saudis between December 2015 andFebruary 2016 also reveals that single working women with higher education tend to spend more time and purchasemore for their own purposes (instead of for the family and others).

12

Setting a small factory in the drawing room might not sound strange for outsiders, but in the context of Saudi
Arabia, it is rare to do so because drawing room is considered to be space for visitors, thus should always be kept
17

The Arabian Peninsula: History, Culture, and Societyclean to accept unexpected visitors.
13

The author’s interview with Huda on 25 March, 2019 in Tokyo.

14

The author’s interview with Wafa on 9 December, 2019 in Riyadh.

15

The author’s interview with Lubna on 9 December, 2019 in Jidda.

16

The author’s interview with Sara on 9 December, 2019 in Riyadh.

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