Seizing the steering wheel

11,000 signatures have been placed on a petition demanding that the government extend freedom to women.

Women in Saudi Arabia have launched a campaign to demand the right to drive and a lifting of the ban informally imposed by the government of the Kingdom. Eleven thousand signatures have been placed on a petition demanding that the government extend this freedom to women, or else explain why the ban exists at all. As a part of the movement, which is also being joined by Saudi men, the organisers hope to bring hundreds of drivers out onto the roads on October 26 to give a public face to their campaign. They argue that other restrictions recently lifted on women, allowing them to sit on some councils, are purely cosmetic.

The organisation of the protest marks a huge stride forward for women in a nation which places severe limitations on women. They are, for instance, not permitted travel without a male escort who is a relative, while activities for girls such as sports are curbed. There has been speculation that the movement seeking a licence to drive could light up the way for other efforts by Saudi women to gain basic rights, in a country where women have been stoned to death for adultery and rape defended as a crime stemming from immoral behaviour by women.

But even what would seem like a minor issue is attracting near-rabid hysteria. A Saudi cleric has suggested driving could damage a woman’s ovaries. He has annexed no scientific evidence or explained why this issue seems not to affect women elsewhere. But the views put forward by the cleric indicate the views that prevail in the country and suggest women will need to fight hard to escape from the dark abyss of ignorance in which they have been living. The effort to be allowed behind the steering wheel is only a start to this; there are many miles ahead of this still to be traversed if Saudi women are to gain greater equality in a repressive society, which has stubbornly refused to change with the times.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2013.

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