On Saturday, October 26, a number of Saudi Arabian women got behind the wheel and drove cars. While it may not seem monumental, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving on public roads. The country does not have an official law, but rather an unofficial ban imposed by conservative clerics that prohibits women from obtaining licenses.
The country also has strict social norms that prevent women from traveling abroad, working, going to school, or even getting medical treatment without the consent of a male guardian, usually a husband or male relative such as a father or brother. This is in addition to depending on male guardians for money, housing, and of course, driving. Hired drivers are very popular, but are a financial burden that many women cannot afford.
“It’s like a person being cut off. Their legs are cut off and the wheelchair has been taken away from them and you’re completely dependent on one gender,” said Madiha Al Ajroush, a psychotherapist, in an interview to NPR in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital.
Ajroush was one of 47 women who first challenged the driving ban in 1990, driving in a convoy down a main street in Riyadh. They faced public backlash, lost their jobs, and had their passports confiscated. Their efforts were not forgotten and only encouraged female drivers. Since 2011, the movement has been referred to as “Women2Drive,” when a larger campaign was launched during the Arab Spring, mainly through social media. More than 70 women were reported driving, although they were also met with resistance as several were detained.
More recently, a group of Saudi women and some men posted an online petition in September, calling for the right to drive and promoting the October 26 campaign. They called on all Saudi women holding valid driving licenses from abroad to get behind the wheel and exercise their right to drive. They also encouraged them to upload videos or pictures of them driving. More than 60 women reported their participation on Saturday and have uploaded their evidence onto YouTube, despite a previous threat by the Interior Ministry to arrest any females caught driving. While no women were harmed or imprisoned on October 26, some were stopped by police and taken in for questioning. On November 3, however, a Kuwaiti woman reportedly driving her ill father to the hospital in Saudi Arabia was stopped by police and detained.
In an interview with The Guardian, human rights activist and photographer Saima El-Moslimany said, “The goal is to normalize driving and encourage women to drive every day.” El-Moslimany participated on October 26, but was followed by police informants who hassled her on the road until she pulled over and was taken in for questioning. She received a fine and was forced to sign a pledge stating she would not drive again in the country, as many other women stopped by the police have had to do (albeit not until their male guardians, if absent, arrived). She commented that this will only make women more determined, and noted that the authorities behaved respectfully although the informants less so.
Conservative Saudi citizens and religious authorities are strongly opposed to women driving, fearing it will lead to civil unrest, among other social problems. Sheik Mohammed al-Nujaimi commented that allowing women to drive would lead to ruined marriages, the spread of adultery, a low birthrate, and more car accidents, while Sheik Al-Loheidan said in an interview with Saudi news website sabq.org, “Medical studies show that [driving] would automatically affect a woman’s ovaries and that it pushes the pelvis upward…We find that for women who continuously drive cars, their children are born with varying degrees of clinical problems.”
Reporter Ahmed Abdel-Raheem of The Guardian recently published his findings of an informal survey carried out among Saudi females, many of whom were students. According to his data, 134 out of 170 women said that driving is not a necessity. They fear it will lead husbands to adultery as other women are now free and without guardians, increase the chances for sexual harassment, allow women to not wear the niqab (in the event they cannot see properly when driving), and create sedition in society, an opinion encouraged by the government. According to a much larger survey carried out by the former students of Abdel-Raheem, the results were the same with 3,209 out of 3,710 women in opposition. The few who favoured driving also favoured safety precautions such as separate lanes for female drivers and sexual harassment laws.
Other responses include a video created by Saudi comedians Hisham Fageeh and Fahad Al Butairi, which satirizes Bob Marley’s famous song, “No Women, No Cry,” replacing the title with, “No Woman, No Drive.” It has since gone viral with activists heralding it as positive support, although both comedians have stated the purpose of their video as entertainment, not politics.
Fawzia al-Bakr, a writer and university professor, was also involved in the 1990 demonstration. She is currently helping the October 26 campaigners draft a new petition after their original September one, which garnered more than 16,000 signatures. This is at the request of Prince Khalid bin Bandar, the governor of Riydah, who offered to present this new petition to King Abdullah. Due to his progressive nature, that includes allowing women to stay in hotels without a letter from a male guardian as of 2008 and granting women the right to vote in and run for office in municipal elections beginning in 2015, the campaigners are hopeful King Abdullah will consider their petition. The next day of “mass” driving is scheduled for November 31.
