Women Drivers: It's About Time Saudi Arabia Has Them, Too
It might be a stretch to relate this to the reforming nature of the Arab Spring, but the women of Saudi Arabia have taken to the roads to protest the kingdom's ban on females behind the wheel. An organized defiance cruise was organized last Friday, using -- naturally -- social media. And one Saudi woman has already been jailed (and subsequently released) for driving.
Saudi Arabia is the world's only country with the prohibition, which ought to tell you something. Namely, that Saudi Arabia is seriously lagging in modernizing itself -- even more than we already thought.
The nature of the ban
It isn't that Saudi's rulers think women are lousy drivers. Rather, the ban is based on a concern that women and men will engage in too easy congress in vehicles.
A slice of Saudi womanhood thinks this is idiotic and isn't afraid to express their disdain for the ban. They took to the roads on Friday in an act of collective defiance. In fact, the controversy has been kicked all the way up to the U.S. State Department. This is from Fox News:
The State Department said Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is opting for "quiet diplomacy" with Saudi officials in urging a change to the kingdom's ban on women driving.When women drive, an economy goes modernState Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said during a recent conversation with Saudi Prince Saud on the issue of Yemen and Syria, "the subject of driving did come up."
Modern societies feature many things: clean water, access to credit, property rights, technology, and men and women at the wheel. In the U.S., more than half of all auto-buying decisions in families are determined by women. For both young men and women in the West, getting a license to drive is a rite of passage, right up there with voting (actually, more important than voting). And in my experience, men assume it, while women work hard for the privilege.
What's more important, however, is giving women access to car ownership -- and then seeing them buy cars in serious numbers. Saudi Arabia already has a very limited economy, based on oil, oil, and more oil. But vehicles are an essential feature of life in the country. So it makes no sense that half the population is denied the opportunity to use them. Women in Saudi Arabia can own cars, but they can't operate them, a demoralizing proposition when you know how liberating it is to roll on down the road.
In addition to the State Department, Saudi women have the auto industry respectfully lobbying on their behalf. Which is unsurprising, as carmakers look at Saudi Arabia and see customers with money to spend. And as we all know, that can be a more powerful force than any protest, even one enhanced by Facebook and Twitter. That might sound cynical. But in the end, it could bring about real change.
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Image: Wikimedia Commons/Denise Chan