Do you mean what you say? Do you say what you mean? Empowering women at work

Abstract

In recent years, Saudi women have been empowered on plenty of levels which were not easily available at the dawn of this century. In the last two decades, social change has been initiated, constructed and distributed discursively on both governmental and non-governmental circles; with the topic of women's inclusion in unconventional work environments provoking controversial positions between the heterogenous society of Saudi Arabia. The current paper offers a critical discourse analysis on how these diverse positions are reported metaphorically in blog posts written by bloggers presenting themselves as supporters of change and women empowerment. Such posts were written between 2009 and 2011; thus, documenting the very early support and opposition to this topic, which has also intensified drastically after King Salman -the current Saudi monarch- ascended to throne in 2015, following the death of the late King Abdullah. Keywords: social change, critical discourse analysis, women empowerment, Saudi Arabia