The kingdom has long been a man’s world, where women have the legal status of children. Do the latest reforms represent progress – or a PR exercise?

At the Luna food factory on the south-east outskirts of Jeddah, Mashael Elghamdi sits at her computer in an artfully ripped AC/DC T-shirt and jeans. The faint whirr of machines processing cans of beans, cream and evaporated milk can be heard over the sound of eight women typing and sometimes laughing. A screensaver of a smiling Cameron Diaz gazes out from one corner of the room. This is an all-female office. And because there is no need for the full-length abayas women are legally required to wear when interacting with men at work or in public, it is a riot of colour.

On the factory floor below, women in custom-made overalls on an all-female production line apply labels to cans. “All the women you see here do everything themselves,” says supervisor Fatima Albasisi, who oversees 90 workers. A staircase and a corridor separate the female factory workers from their male counterparts, while the men-only offices are in a different building. “If there’s a problem with the machines, they can fix it,” Albasisi adds. “If I could, I’d have a factory entirely run by women, no men at all. In my experience, women show up to work on time and make fewer mistakes.”