Being Young, Male and Saudi: Identity and Politics in a Globalized Kingdom by Mark C. Thompson (review)

While scholars have long focused on the challenges facing Saudi women, they have been far less interested in men, especially those who are not religious extremists, terror ists, or are not tied to the Saudi royal family. That is why Mark Thompson’s Being Young, Male and Saudi is a worthwhile addition to the literature on the country’s politics and its society. Published in 2019, Thompson’s book uses 50 focus group discussions, a wide array of interviews, and online surveys to reveal to us how young men in Saudi Arabia see themselves and their county.

Throughout Being Young, Male and Saudi, Thompson utilizes an approach that mirrors the one that I used in two critical ways in my recent book, Changing Saudi Arabia: Arts, Culture, and Society in the Kingdom (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2019). First, he aims to broaden our discussion of politics in Saudi Arabia, which is often defined through the words and actions of its national leaders. While official pronouncements and actions are central to understanding Saudi diplomacy, they are not as useful for analyzing other elements of the kingdom, including its young men. Second, Thompson aims, in his book, to broaden scholarly analysis of Saudi Arabia beyond the central “urban belt” of Jidda, Riyadh, and the Eastern Province to include regions such as ‘Asir and Qasim. “Local contexts,” Thompson rightly asserts, are critical to understanding Saudi society, which “is not a homogeneous entity” (p. 196).

Thanks to this approach, Being Young, Male and Saudi provides the reader with a broad picture of how young Saudi men discuss and view a variety of issues: national and tribal identity, family life, education, everyday interactions, leisure, work, gender, social media, their country’s place in the world, and socioeconomic reform. Notably, the presence of paradoxical forces regularly appears in these discussions, including those that touch on issues as sensitive as the question of whether women should drive. For instance, a young man in Qasim employs humor to vent his and others’ frustrations with the sociocultural expectations of Saudi society and the realities of daily life: “In Saudi Arabia, young men can drive and therefore, go anywhere. The problem is that when they arrive at their destination, they are not allowed in. However, young women in Saudi Arabia are allowed in everywhere but, for them the problem is, they cannot get there [on their own]” (p. 200).

That joke forms part of Thompson’s discussion of masculinity and gender relations in Chapter 5, one of the two strongest in the book. In this chapter he seeks to shed light on how young men view issues that are overwhelmingly explored by scholars through the framework of Saudi women: education, employment, gender and social segregation, marriage, and women’s driving. In particular, Thompson stresses that young Saudi men are hampered by the fact that they (a) are not treated as adults before they are married, (b) have little interaction with women outside of their families before adulthood, and (c) face pressures to uphold idealized standards of manhood and masculinity. Consequently, young men, he notes, are ill prepared to deal with women at work — prompting a Saudi woman to tweet in frustration to the all-male King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) that it should teach its students “how to deal with females” before sending them into the workforce (p. 204). Still, the challenges facing young men at work, Thompson explains, are nothing compared to those they face in marriage, where they must balance the financial and sociocultural expectations of their families, society, and their wives. This has proven quickly to be too much for many to bear in recent years, with focus groups telling Thompson that divorce takes place “in the first year in marriage, after the couple is exposed to ‘real life’” (p. 224).

Thompson recognizes that “real life” also includes the activities that young men engage in when...