Imagine being a woman married to a wealthy sheikh in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. You’re surrounded by flamboyant, expensive and bulky furniture. Your troupe of servants is at your beck and call. You decide to go on a ridiculously expensive vacation to attend Paris Fashion Week, and with all that money coming in from the sale of ever-more-expensive oil, you can most definitely afford to.

But money can’t buy everything. It’s not capitalism that rules your life, but social restraints. It’s time to go beg your husband to let you leave the country and give you one of the much-sought-after signed letters of “mahram” approval to travel.

Few are aware of the everyday difficulties women in Saudi Arabia face. But a new generation of artists is rebelling against the silence, a move that recalls activists fighting for gender equality in the 1960s.

Manal Al Dowayan is one of the most creative members of the new guard. Naima Rashid describes her latest piece, ‘Suspended Together,’ for Newsline‘s August issue:

“A cluster of 50 doves are suspended from the ceiling, each bearing on her wings a stamped letter of approval by a male mahram. The mastery in Manal’s work lies in her willingness to look a certain way and to show a certain facet of truth to the world.”

Admirable and creative as such pieces are, they cannot shield the artists who make them. Will Al Dowayan face retribution from powerful groups invested in the Kingdom’s status quo?

If so, this does not disturb her. She is an old hand at standing up to the bigoted. Rashid tells us that “as far back as 2003, in response to a media debate about which professions were suitable for women, Manal took out her camera and went around the Kingdom to photograph women from all walks of life. Her subjects were doctors, engineers, architects, scuba divers and administrators.”

The artist thus shows that women can be anything they want to be. She has questioned the idea that any one scholar or media outlet can define what women are capable or incapable of doing.

Al Dowayan’s battle is difficult, but she is not fighting it alone. Naima Rashid highlights a multitude of brave new artists in Newsline’s August issue.