Daily Times

Infected by the wave of uprisings in the Middle East, 29 women separately took to the streets in their vehicles in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that has an unwritten law against women driving. Saudi Arabia is the only country where such a ban is in place. The Saudi state has firmly stood by the conservative norms of Saudi society, which reek of gender bias of the worst kind. Although there is no law prohibiting women from driving, but the ban is effected by not issuing driving licences to women. This restriction has everything to do with Saudi culture and is in no way related to religious injunctions, as borne out by the fact that nowhere in the Muslim world is such a ban in place. Even in the seventh century, at the time of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), women had more freedom than they have today in Saudi Arabia. It is yet to be seen what will happen to the women who rebelled against this conservative tradition and the Saudi state, which brooks no opposition. In 1990, the 47 women who mustered the courage to push the traditional boundaries and take the driving seat in a similar effort at emancipation were silently persecuted for their action. Some of them had their passports confiscated, others were fired from jobs or had to close down their businesses and their male relatives were shamed and castigated for not controlling them. However, things have changed tremendously since those times. Today, not only are a large number of Saudi women highly educated, have exposure to the outside world, directly, through television, movies or social networking websites, their men have also been affected by the ideas of women’s equality and emancipation.

Although the signs of social change are exhibiting themselves gradually and imperceptibly and Saudi society is still very conservative outwardly, perhaps the time has come that the Saudi regime reconsider its support for such a suffocating tradition that has unnecessarily shackled women and added to the economic burden of families who are forced to keep drivers. The context of political uprisings in the Middle East might force the kingdom to not react so harshly to this latest defiance as it did after 1990. *