Saudi Arabia’s Aseel al-Hamad Drives F1 Car ahead of French Grand Prix Monday, 25 June, 2018

[The SC]

Monday, 25 June, 2018 - 10:00

Saudi Arabia’s Aseel al-Hamad after driving a 2012 Renault ahead of the French Formula One Grand Prix. (Reuters)


Aseel al-Hamad became on Sunday the first Saudi woman to drive a Formula One car after she got behind the wheel of a 2012 Renault for a lap ahead of the French Grand Prix.

She drove the car around the Le Castellet circuit the day that a ban on women driving in the Kingdom ended.

"I believe today is not just celebrating the new era of women starting to drive, it's also the birth of women in motor sport in Saudi Arabia," al-Hamad said via Reuters.

"The most important thing I am looking forward to is to start seeing the next generation, young girls, trying (motor sports careers). I want to watch them training and taking the sport very seriously as a career. This is going to be really my biggest achievement."

A Saudi interior designer and business executive, al-Hamad had driven the car, which Kimi Raikkonen drove to a victory in Abu Dhabi in 2012, earlier this month and her lap went smoothly Sunday.

"It was perfect. Everything was smooth, I felt I belong in the seat," she said afterward. "I loved the fact that there was an audience around ... today is magical."

Al-Hamad is the first female member of the Saudi Arabian Motorsport Federation and serves on the Women in Motorsport Commission set up by Formula One's governing body.

She also was the first woman to import a Ferrari into Saudi Arabia and has taken her 458 Spider to tracks around the country for workshops and track days.

She hopes that there will soon be female racecar drivers in her country.

"For sure, definitely. And this is going to be my mission in Saudi."


https://aawsat.com/english/home/art...l-hamad-drives-f1-car-ahead-french-grand-prix

 

[The SC]

125,000 Women Applied for their Driver’s License in Saudi Arabia

https://aawsat.com/english/home/art...n-applied-their-driver’s-license-saudi-arabia

 

[Indus Pakistan]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

 

[Cybernetics]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

Everything is relative

 

[BATMAN]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

No where in the world people took the driving news so negatively as the team of defence.pk.

What you listed was already happening in Saudi Arabia, except driving tanks and flying fighter jets, you obviously are unable to see it.
There are plenty of discussions on this issue and Saudi members have tried their best to help you inform you, but it seems a dead end.


http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/517388/SAUDI-ARABIA/NASA

 

[Saif al-Arab]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

Actually women in KSA are some of the best educated women in the world (KSA is one of the few countries of the world where women have a bigger percentage of university graduates than the male portion of the population), a woman chairs the Muslim world's largest stock exchange in KSA, KSA's has one of the largest percentages of women in KSA's equivalent to a parliament (Shoura Council), women can issue fatwas in KSA, women can now be a part of the military etc.

The only "moronic law" that remains in place is the guardianship laws which de facto are not a course for trouble for most Saudi Arabian females unless they have a really, really conservative family that restricts them.

You can't blame 50% of KSA's population for being happy that a 35 year old moronic law (that came in place due to hardliners in the Ulema and a fatwa from the former Grand Mufti (Ibn Baaz) for showing their happiness.

https://www.equalitynow.org/content...s-shaikh-abdel-aziz-bin-abdallah-bin-baz-1990

KSA's "woman rights situation" was not reflected by this moronic (now luckily gone law) but that was all there was in the media.

KSA needs additional reforms (they will come with time) but Saudi Arabian women are doing better than most women in the Muslim world when it comes to something as crucial as education.

It's the system in place (in particular what was in place just a few years ago) that is the problem, not Saudi Arabian women as such. Structural problems in other words that MbS and company are working hard to erase for the benefit of KSA and the people. Something that most Saudi Arabians wholeheartedly support.

If the Guardianship laws can be either removed or changed (a system that derives from the Sahwa period post 1979 as well and something that I imagine is going to be reformed or removed soon) there will be few issues compared to even developed nations other than women's participation in the workforce which keeps increasing but remains too low and unsatisfactory.

Things are moving in all the right directions and it might not seem special for the likes of UK (century old democracies and fully developed countries) but it is special for women in KSA who not long ago where restricted by the decisions of a few hardline clerics (dinosaurs). We, most Arabs, most Muslims and in fact most normal humans on the planet are happy to see where KSA is moving towards. I know for a fact that I am.

Everything is relative

Case in point China's rise in the past 30 years. Everything is relative to the time period that we are living in. Not THAT many centuries ago, Western Asia was the hub of women and human rights and at the top of the food chain. Just like for millennia in pre-Islamic times. For the past 500 years, it's been the West and now we are doing the catching up on all fronts. Some more than others. It should be looked as a challenge. KSA's population (70% below 30 years of age) are highly educated, ambitious and want to improve the country further. It's a great place to be in.

 

[Ajaxpaul]

2012 car has a V10 I believe, I am not sure.

 

[Trango Towers]

125,000 Women Applied for their Driver’s License in Saudi Arabia

https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1311141/125000-women-applied-their-driver’s-license-saudi-arabia

woooooow. impressive. now compare that to female Pakistani fighter pilots, Commandos and i can go on but we are not arabs and not as advanced.

 

[Saif al-Arab]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1010816245925580800

https://twitter.com/x/status/1010813680538259456

https://twitter.com/x/status/1010770677035687941

https://twitter.com/x/status/1010737970041716737

A great step that came far too late but better than never.

Aseel al-Hamad (member of the Saudi Arabian national motorsport federation)

https://twitter.com/x/status/1010924045121056768

Saudi Arabia's $90 billion reason to allow women to drive

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com...allow-women-to-drive/articleshow/64722073.cms

End to women's driving ban to save Saudis billions, support reforms

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...saudis-billions-support-reforms-idUSKCN1C21TQ

woooooow. impressive. now compare that to female Pakistani fighter pilots, Commandos and i can go on but we are not arabs and not as advanced.

Yes, because a 35 year old law in KSA reflects all 250 million Arab females life in the Arab world and even the 15 million Saudi Arabian females who are among the most well-educated women in the Muslim world and who are contributing enormously to KSA on all fronts despite several remaining obstacles.

Women in KSA are now allowed to join the army. So what? Is that going to somehow remove the challenges that they suffer form in KSA. Or what about Pakistani women? The fact that they can be fighter jet pilots, does that mean that they do not face other problems in Pakistani? I am sure that Somalian and Afghan woman can become fighter jet pilots in theory as well, yet their situation is a hellhole overall.

Women from UAE (same people = 90% of all Emiratis are from modern-day KSA) have fighter jet pilots and commandos = women in UAE live a perfect life;



I love your logic and Arab-obsessed comments as usual. What are you even doing in this thread? Hilarious.

BTW the vagina worshipping should also stop. I am not an anti-feminist but this total equality nonsense is even getting on my nerves. It's the reason why Europe is losing its culture by large as per the European nationalists. The erosion of traditional culture and some kind of unnatural utopia where gender does not matter at all. Women should have the rights that they deserve but I do not hope that KSA copies Sweden even 50 years from now.

 

[HAIDER]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

You mean this .... lol

 

[The SC]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

Nope friend, they are already CEOs of big corporations, scientists, doctors, Engineers, professors, teachers, executives...and so on in the thousands..

 

[Saif al-Arab]

You mean this .... lol

Are we supposed to be impressed by that as Arabs? Did you miss my post? Arab females fought in wars that were recorded 3000 years ago. Including female Arab rulers.

Let alone during the Islamic era.

Read about Arab women during the Arab-Israeli wars as well. Millions of Arab women were directly involved in numerous independence wars/movements across the Arab world before Pakistan even became a country.

https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/anci...caliph-in-history-do-arabs-hate-women.564572/

BTW in general women should only have supportive roles in the army.

Dude, if you are one of those hardcore Feminists, with all due respect, Pakistan is no role model to follow, nor are the Arab world or the Muslim world.

If you were some Dane, I would get your agenda here.

 

[jetray]

In rest of the world women are flying fighter jets, driving tanks running countries as Prime Ministers. But in KSA they are celebrating a high water mark by being allowed to drive cars.


Is it me that finds this

stop looking at the half empty glass, its a start and if things go well they might well do those things in future. We need to appreciate that this is a big start compared to what they are.

A botched attempt to open up immediately will only strengthen the radicals.

 

[Saif al-Arab]

stop looking at the half empty glass, its a start and if things go well they might well do those things in future. We need to appreciate that this is a big start compared to what they are.

A botched attempt to open up immediately will only strengthen the radicals.

KSA is already doing far better than South Asian countries when it comes to women education for instance, literacy rates, women at leading positions (percentage wise in comparison) etc.

The problems in KSA were/are structural (laws and system in place) which is much easier to solve and correct (as has been the case in the past 2 years) than eradicating illiteracy and improving education to such a degree that the majority of women have university degrees for instance.

Let me use this moronic 35-40 year old law against women driving in KSA as an example.

1) People had no say in that law.

2) The majority of people never supported it

3) The law derived from a fatwa by the former Grand Mufti (Ibn Baaz) 28 years ago where it was made into a "law" de facto and not de jure due to hardliners (at that time) dominating the Ulema (religious establishment in KSA which plays a big role when it comes to social aspects of Saudi Arabian culture since the Sahwa movement began 40-45 years ago) which MbS (logically and something the majority of the population has been calling for ever since) put an end to. Within 9 months, KSA made this change (which is no small feat when you think about it structural wise and in terms of infrastructure) and the people nor the women were a problem. Hence it being about a system that in the case of KSA can change within days in theory.

Anyway you will soon see that yourself so I won't have to explain things.

My prediction is that within 5 years, 10 at most, KSA will be leading on all the right fields in the wider Muslim and developing world (albeit KSA is a developed country mostly already).

The problem in KSA before was always a small population compared to the heavyweights in the world, self-harming moronic laws (this old law being a perfect example of one such law) and structural problems with the system as a whole. All deriving from the Sahwa era.

If KSA had had a MbS 30-35 years ago, we would be in a totally difference place today, not that we have HUGE complains.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Actually women in KSA are some of the best educated women in the world

I have no doubt about that. But not allowing them to drive was cramping all the progress females have made in KSA. Also you have no idea the degree to which many Pakistan's are mentally beholden to the Kingdom. Not allowing them to drive in KSA just fed into the rampant misogny in our societies. Anyway this is great news. I imagine this initiative has come from MBS.

I expect more from him in the future.