The case study presented in this article is based on ethnographic materials collated during a two-year field research inside a Western, gated, militarized and isolated compound, situated outside Taif, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The article explores not only the implications of Goffman’s total institution (TI) model in this new setting, but it also discovers a new dimension of gender–power relations in the context of a specific gated community. It focuses on the symbolic exchanges in and outside the walls, with a specific focus on gender agenda. It advances the TI concept towards a ‘softer’ and yet still ‘total’ type of institution, where the gender polarity in and outside the compound sets a unique organizational structure. The idea of ‘gender adjustment’ and the soft model of total institution (where soft indicates the ambiguity of the gate and its symbolic dimension) are the main theoretical contributions.
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