Women on Wheels (WoW) was launched by Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit (CMSMU) earlier this year, wherein the first phase 150 women in Lahore were provided training after which they took to the roads of the city to mark the initiation of the project. After the successful launch, the initiative has been expanded to other cities of Punjab including Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad. The project will be further expanded to other cities of the province in phases. Last week, a rally was held in Rawalpindi, while this week, the initiative was launched in Faisalabad where CMSMU’s head Salman Sufi and Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah accompanied the rally on motorcycles. The CMSMU has been doing commendable work under which many important initiatives including the Protection of Women against Violence Act, Model Graveyards, and Dealer Vehicular Registration System among others have been successfully launched. While the initiative of WoW is appreciable, it would be hard to implement it among the masses unless people are educated at the grassroots level about the equal role of women in society. Until then, the groundbreaking initiative would be considered just a cosmetic measure as not many people would be willing to let female members of their families out on the roads on motorcycles. Although men ride motorcycles with women on the backseats, they do not let them be on the driving seat. The attitude built over a lifetime of conditioning of a false sense of superiority that motorcycles are to be driven only by men has resulted in the issue becoming a closed topic for women. Unless people are educated, and roads are made safer for women, the project would merely remain a theatrical episode done to promote equality of women in a society that is inherently patriarchal. It has been months since the launch of the project in Lahore, yet there are hardly any women seen on the roads driving motorcycles. Motorcycles are the most common mode of transport among the people in cities mainly due to lack of public transport infrastructure. Due to low prices and easy availability, most of the middle and lower middle class resort to using this mode of transportation. Thousands of women also go to their workplaces and schools on a daily basis and need a reliable mode of transportation for that purpose. An initiative like WoW can provide them that reliable mode provided roads are made safe for women. Moreover, although government is planning to give motorcycles to women on subsidised rates, there is a need to manufacture special models of motorcycles that are easy to handle for women. There are numerous countries around the world where women use motorcycles as their mode of transport. The closest examples are the neighbouring countries of Pakistan — India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka — where thousands of women are on roads on motorcycles every day. A girl/woman riding a motorcycle in a country like Pakistan is not an act of rebellion. It is simply a reiteration of the celebration of her equal status in a society that exists in its own narrow and regressive boundaries that limit, on a personal and collective level, the participation of women in the progress of the nation. *