If you’re looking for an adventure, I wouldn’t advise looking for it in Saudi Arabia, at least not if you’re a woman. (Or a dissident man.)

At first, Saudi Arabia was an adventure for Bethany Vierra.

An American from Washington State, she taught at a women’s university, started a company, married a Saudi businessman and gave birth to a curly-haired daughter, Zaina.

And couldn’t go anywhere without his permission, right? And had to wear an abaya any time she left home, right? Not all that adventurey.

But since the marriage went sour and she sought a divorce, she has been trapped. Because of the kingdom’s so-called guardianship laws, which give men great power over women, she is unable to use her bank account, leave the country, travel with her daughter or seek legal help, according to her cousin, Nicole Carroll.

One wonders if she did any Googling before she went to Saudi Arabia.

Ms. Vierra, 31, is now divorced, but her ex-husband let her residency expire, meaning she has lost access to her bank account and cannot get authorization to leave the country, Ms. Carroll said. Their 4-year-old daughter cannot travel without her father’s permission, meaning that even if Ms. Vierra finds a way to leave the kingdom, her child may have to stay behind.

Crappiest adventure ever.

A State Department official declined to comment on Ms. Vierra’s case, citing privacy rules. But the consular information page for Saudi Arabia on the State Department’s website notes that even non-Saudi women need a male guardian’s permission to leave the country and that the United States government “cannot obtain exit visas for the departure of minor children without their father/guardian’s permission.”

It also says that when foreigners divorce Saudis, “Saudi courts rarely grant permission for the foreign parent to leave the country with the children born during the marriage, even if he or she has been granted physical custody.”

So that’s her life wrecked.

Let’s hear some more about how women have cis privilege.