Why can’t women in Saudi Arabia drive?

[Raja.Pakistani]

The top sounds good, except it sucks when it come to road races

And wtf? I've seen Indian women drive.. Even old ladies

However widely used transportation in India include trains, auto rickshaws, metros and in some cases taxis.. But there is no rule that denies women rights for driving in India.

sure but you need car for driving and most women in india and pakistan cannot afford to buy cars and get suffer in buses and public transport lol
Even middle class peoples in our countries can hardly afford one car which male drive most of the times and non working desi women stay homes most of the times

 

[Hindustani]

sure but you need car for driving and most women in india and pakistan cannot afford to buy cars and get suffer in buses and public transport lol
Even middle class peoples in our countries can hardly afford one car which male drive most of the times and non working desi women stay homes most of the times

All true expect the "affording cars" part. That's why we made the Nano for those making less income. This is out of the blue, but did pakistan ever accept the Nano deal?

 

[Raja.Pakistani]

^ Dude if you see how much public is using buses, trains, taxi and public transport , you will get the idea what i am talking about. I don't know about india but public transport in Pakistan is suck

we have Suzuki mehran( cheapest car available lol) which cost 5 to 6 lakh

 

[Hindustani]

^ Dude if you see how much public is using buses, trains, taxi and public transport , you will get the idea what i am talking about. I don't know about india but public transport in Pakistan is suck

we have Suzuki mehran( cheapest car available lol)

Well yeah.. I wasn't talking about dense cities such as Mumbai or Delhi, I was referring to rural cities as well as other less dense urban cities such as Gaya, Chandigarh, Raipur, Jammu etc.

I do agree though, public transportation is very common in India and Pakistan

 

[EjazR]

Just a few comments from the dawn article,

(1) It gives the impression as if the US was responsible for getting girls education. If that were the case, there would be no ban on women driving as well. The fact of the matter is King Faisal with considerable pressure on him from the Tribal groups still went through with girls education. In the beginning he had to hire security guards and army units to protect girls going to school. And in fact there was an attack as well in which a few tribals were killed. This incident was also one of the causes that later led to his stabbing by an estranged far off relative because his brother was killed in that attack. Saudis are justifiably proud that King Faisal and his wife Queen Effat did the hard fighting in their time for girls education to give the Saudi girls today one of the fastest literacy achievement rates in the world of around going from single digits in the 60s to 80+% today. There are currently more female graduates than male graduates as well.

(2) The disappointing part is lack of job opportunities. While Saudi women for the most part are wealthy, literate and more educated than their male counterparts, their job prospects are severely constrained. There are projects like women only call centers, women only universities, women only industrial parks. But these can only go so far. They will have to come up with possibilities were male and female colleagues and work together to harness the full potential of saudi women.

(3) There is no ban on using public transport. Saudi public transport btw is non-existent wit a few buses and a train link from Dammam to Riyadh. And from personal experience, there is no restrictions on women traveling on public transport. Not to mention Taxis being used a plenty. Of course, apparently Saudi women prefer to travel with "Desi" Taxi drivers rather than Saudi Taxi drivers because Desis are more courteous but that is another story.

(4) The driving ban is stupid and unnecessary. What people don't know is that its not even enforced uniformly. From my own experience, I can tell that in expat compounds or in the rural areas, women do drive cars and the police does not enforce any ban as long as they drive safely. If they are involved in any accident, the husband or father gets the fine, police case e.t.c. In cities the ban is more strictly enforced. I would personally give a maximum of five years before this ban is repealed. Not only because the ban has nothing to do with Islam but because of pure economics as well. Drivers are no longer as cheap as they used to be and not many Saudis afford them either.


Petition to lift ban on women driving - Arab News
JEDDAH/TAIF: While helping with her family’s farm outside Taif, 15 year-old Nora Muslaah usually drives the truck that carries vegetables from the field to her family’s home.

Although she has four younger brothers, as the oldest she feels it her duty to help out her family as much as possible, adding that she does not feel she is breaking the law. She feels she is only doing what so many Saudi women living outside major cities do everyday to assist their families.

“Because most families have a lot of work to do in rural areas and are usually living spaced apart, unlike large cities, most police authorities here don’t strictly enforce the driving ban as long as women drive safely and don’t cause trouble. Everything is fine with most officials found to look the other way,” Muslaah said.

In fact, according to some people, such as Saudi businessman and economist Abdullah Alami, the boundary lines on who can and cannot drive in the Kingdom is not exactly clear to prohibit women from driving.

“Driving in Saudi Arabia is a right for men as well as women if you examine the Saudi Traffic Regulations,” Alami said. “Article 32 of the Traffic Regulations states that it is prohibited for any ‘person’ driving a vehicle without a driver’s license. Based on this rule, it does not limit licenses to only men but to a ‘person’ in general,” Alami explained.

With this argument intact, Alami is currently leading a campaign to permanently lift the ban on women driving. In January, Alami sent a petition to the Shoura Council for review. The petition included the signatures of 136 Saudis, 38 of whom were men. Surprisingly, a majority of men said they do not mind if women drive.

“The issue is based on trust and control within one’s own family,” said Hani Abdullah, a Saudi father of four.

“I would prefer to allow my daughters and wife to drive rather than have a driver. In my opinion, drivers in many Saudi families these days are allowed to get too involved with families and know too many private things about them. This is against the principles of religion,” he added.

“I believe that the issue is a social one. I think that men and women should be taught in school and at home from an early age how to respect each other socially. Instead, I often see three or four cars stopped in the middle of the street surrounding a taxi carrying a woman or cars chasing other cars carrying women around the city creating dangerous scenarios. If everyone knew how to respect each other as Islam states, then this would not be the scenario, nor would women driving in cities be a problem,” said Aymen Redwan.

The petition recently sent to the Shoura Council by Alami not only asks for the ban to be lifted but also includes requests for a women’s section to be included within the Kingdom’s police departments, driving schools and licenses for women, and stringent punishment for men who harass women drivers.

 

[EjazR]

Not to mention that there seems to be a tacit backing of the saudi govt. In a country where any pro-democracy protests were severely stifled and their coverage almost banned in local news papers and TV channels. There is it seems coverage of a June 2 "Women 2 Drive" campaign on the cards.

Will Saudi women drivers make Nascar nervous? - Arab News

This could be the most peaceful variant of The Arab Spring we have seen to date. Or it could turn out to be very painful. And very scary.

The big event will take place in Saudi Arabia. There, from June 17 onward, hundreds of women will be — wait for it — driving their own cars. No male family members. No professional drivers. Just women. Driving.

To pull this off without ending up in the slammer, the women came up with an idea: "What if we set a date where any woman around Saudi who has a driver's license" can go in public and drive? We are hoping to collect as many supporters as we can, if we succeed of collecting 100s in major cities, and all of them start driving June 17 and forward, it will be so much hectic for authorities and it will force them to look at our issue."

They explained further: "We are not demonstrating or going out in groups. It will be individual act and we asked all brave women who will participate to video tape themselves and post it on our Facebook page for the rest of the world to see and to prove that we can do it and to encourage those who are afraid to take that step."

A spokesperson for the group — known as "Women 2 Drive" — said, "We tried and tried to get our voice heard, but we have been faced with ignorance, it's time we simply take an action until they accept sitting with us on the same table... and listen."

She added, "Saudi women's rights have been overlooked for decades. We were waiting for a miracle to happen and waiting. We finally had enough and decided no more waiting, we will go get it! and the start will be announcing the day we will go ahead and drive our cars in public on June 17 onward."

Women represent 46% of the Saudi population (13,157,907 females out of 28,686,633 the total population of Saudi). "We have over 2 million working women who can't go to work by themselves and depend on a male driver whether family or private driver. We have 750,000 private drivers here," a spokesperson said, adding:

"There is no written law banning women from driving, it's just the known thing that women can't drive. And police arrest women if they drive in public. What's worse [is] that Saudi has no public transportation like the rest of the world. So moving around or going to work is piece of hell and very expensive."

If you visit our Facebook event, she said, "we have 558 attendees and the number is increasing every hour. Our twitter page is followed by almost 800 followers. We are contacting everyone, asked for help from moviemakers, photographers and cartoonist to support us. And we created a group of female volunteers to teach women how to drive for free to prepare them. We also have men too supporting us so much. and we will get Islamic scholars and public figures supporting our cause too. And we are writing a letter to King Abdallah himself with this decision."

The Group's statement on its Facebook page, found at ( http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=117325311683192) declares:

"On June 17th, 2011, we women in Saudi Arabia, from all nationalities, will start driving our cars by ourselves. We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities, we are here to claim one of our simplest rights. We have driver's licenses and we will abide by the traffic laws. Enough with the talk... we are here to walk the talk and just do it. it's about time!"

The women are using all the new social networking tools to recruit more drivers and raise public awareness of the activity. There has not yet been any official response from the Saudi government. Its twitter account is:

[http://twitter.com/#!/Women2Drive] .

I'm sure a lot of us remember the "listening tour" to Saudi Arabia embarked upon by George Bush's public diplomacy advisor, Karen Hughes, back in 2005. Her job was to spread the American message to Muslim publics. But, in Saudi Arabia, one of those publics — rich women — had a decidedly pointed message for Ms. Hughes.

The New York Times reported that on Sept. 27, in Jeddah, "the audience — 500 women covered in black at a Saudi university — seemed an ideal place for Karen P. Hughes, a senior Bush administration official charged with spreading the American message in the Muslim world, to make her pitch."

But, as The New York Times noted, "The response" was not what she and her aides expected. When Ms. Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her.

"The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn't happy," one audience member said. "Well, we're all pretty happy." The room, full of students, faculty members and some professionals, resounded with applause, according to The Times.

The paper said Ms. Hughes "seemed clearly taken aback as the women told her that just because they were not allowed to vote or drive that did not mean they were treated unfairly or imprisoned in their own homes.

Several women told The Times later that Americans failed to understand that their traditional society was embraced by men and women alike.

"There is more male chauvinism in my profession in Europe and America than in my country," said Dr. Siddiqa Kamal, an obstetrician and gynecologist who runs her own hospital.

"I don't want to drive a car," she said. "I worked hard for my medical degree. Why do I need a driver's license?"

But Women 2 Drive is obviously a completely different kettle of fish. Its membership contains many professional and other working women who can not use Saudi Arabia's non-existent public transport system and so need their own cars to get to and from their work.

Commenting on other obstacles that prevent women driving in Saudi, a spokesperson for the group said, "What stops most of us that only very few know how to drive, and less than that who have driver's licenses... but those who can drive and have a valid driver's license (of course a non-Saudi license, as women here can't have one)...those women will drive" and we created a campaign and accepting names of ladies who are willing to teach the rest of us how to drive... women are not allowed to go to driving schools here... which makes the situation worse... the act will be individual. Protests and demonstrations are prohibited by religious people and banned by the government in Saudi... so we don't want to be seen as law breakers in any mean" we simply want to practice this insignificant right of us."

So it remains to be seen whether the Saudi government will consider this velvet uprising as a totally practical and completely benign gesture, as do its sponsors.

Based on past performance, I wouldn't head to the bank just yet. But it would be a grand and very kind gesture if King Abdullah at least let the event pass in silence. Then we could see it as a baby step. Arab Spring Lite.

 

[Respect4Respect01]

They can drive with close family or those whom they have breast fed. So they have option of breast feeding their drivers

u have a fu cking dirty mind a-hole,

get a fukin life

 

[ephone]

U.S. really need incite a revolution there.

Compared to Saudi, Egypt is a much open place.

In recent times, the Middle East region has been in the news pretty regularly, but perhaps, no reason for making the headlines has been as bizarre as this one: A woman was arrested because she decided to drive a car on the streets of Saudi Arabia, and then posted a video of herself driving.

On the 23rd of May, the Associated Press reported that “Saudi authorities have re-arrested an activist who defied a ban on female drivers in the conservative kingdom. Manal al-Sherif was accused of “violating public order” and remanded in custody for five days while the case is investigated, a security official said.

Sherif launched a campaign against the ban last week by posting a video on the internet of herself behind the wheel in the eastern city of Khobar. A Facebook page called “Teach me how to drive so I can protect myself” urged all Saudi women to drive on 17 June, and drew 12,000 supporters before it was removed. The campaign’s Twitter account also was deactivated.

Najla Al-Hariri, another woman who dared to defy the oppressive law and drove around the city claims that there is no enforceable law which prevents women from driving, rather it is only a cultural and religious norm. Tariq Al Maeena, a prominent Saudi writer stated in an article that it is only some fundamentalist scholars who oppose women drivers.

If one explores further into ‘religious’ ruling, one learns that during the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) when there were no cars, and horses and camels were the only means of transport, and the blessed members of the Prophet’s family, his wives and daughters used them. In fact the Prophet (PBUH) commented in an authentic hadith of Al-Bukhari, “The best women who ride camels are the women of Quraysh.”

That said, the ban on women driving in KSA is indeed mystifying, when women from every other Muslim country are driving freely on the roads. Certainly, it does not make them any less ‘Muslim’ than their Saudi counterparts, who it seems have been hard done by a law which has roots, at best, in a culture full of prejudice against women.

Isobel Coleman author of the book Paradise Beneath Her Feet, senior fellow for US foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, revealed that in Saudi Arabia, at one time, girls were not allowed to attend school. In 1962, in an agreement with the United States, the then king allowed females to get formally educated at school. Now, nearly half a century later, in the Kingdom, 63 per cent of all college graduates are women.

In a place where more women than men are graduating from college, naturally a sizeable per centage of people in the work-force will be females. A driving ban such as this means that a male would be ferrying the woman to and back from work, to the mall, even for groceries! Either a salaried driver must be hired (remember women using public transport such as buses in KSA is still taboo), or taxis must be hailed or the woman must be at the mercy of her husband, brother, son or father to take her around.

A skill such as that of driving must never be underestimated – it is immensely useful in day to day life, it can be used in dire situations, and can even save lives! How many people reading this can disagree to the fact that a woman who drives is an added bonus for any family, and is in fact a great relief to her male counterparts? Moreover, it grants women a measure of independence and subsequently confidence in their own abilities.

Scholars who have given the religious ruling that disallows women to drive claim that a woman driving would be open to harassment, sexually and otherwise, and maybe even abuse. One wonders though – is there any guarantee a woman will not be harassed at the workplace? Since a threat such as that obviously exists, is it correct to pull out women from the workforce altogether?

Another example one can cite here is of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, where during circumambulation around the Ka’aba, men and women often come in close contact. ‘Eve-teasing’ or in plain terms, sexual harassment happens to thousands of women inside the Haram. Does the religious police ban women from entering the mosque altogether? No, of course not.

Arab News of Saudi Arabia ran an article titled “Not all Saudi women seeking to drive cars” which talks about how not having to look for a parking space and the luxury and comfort of having a driver means Saudi women prefer to be driven around. However, people in Saudi Arabia refuse to buy that as one reader indignantly states in a comment: [Are you kidding?! this is real life! there are single moms, divorced women, daughters with father who are sick, wives who need to care for their husbands, mothers who have to attend to their children’s school meetings, Muslim sisters who just want to go to the masjid to listen to Quran!] sic.

The Kingdom, in recent times has seen a lot of development. From the trains that are being built to connect the sites of pilgrimage, to the great amount of construction that is being carried out in cities like Riyadh and Jeddah, and even Madinah and Makkah (where the clock tower which will break several construction records is under construction) the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has forayed ahead in many areas. Yet this one policy still remains, even after it has been challenged many times by Saudi women in the past. Is it a form of sexism and male chauvinism at its worse, or is it really a law to protect women?

As always, the social media has seen thousands of people voicing their opinions and a great number of them support Manal Al-Sherif’s cause. Considering the fact that Facebook was instrumental in over-throwing the regime of a dictator in the same region, one hopes that this time round too, oppression, (though in another form) will be defeated.

» Why can

 

[Roybot]

Saudi's took the whole "Women are bad drivers" to a whole new level.

Pathetic

 

[Iota]

Not allowing woman to drive is stupid, but so is requiring them to wear a Burqa outside! Saudi Arabia needs to get rid of these laws.

 

[ephone]

The whole system need to be get rid of.

Not allowing woman to drive is stupid, but so is requiring them to wear a Burqa outside! Saudi Arabia needs to get rid of these laws.

 

[Solomon2]

They cant drive because Bani Tamim the largest arab tribe of Saudi Arabia centered around Nejd and Riyadh traditionally banned their women from leading or riding horses alone.

So let the women fly helicopters instead, there can't be anything wrong with that!

 

[casual]

well, at least they got the safest roads in the world.

 

[Burnz]

They have a driver who has an air-conditioned car ready when they want to leave from their home and an air-conditioned car ready for when they want to return to their home-perhaps only taking a few steps from the front gate to the car. They don't have to personally fight the traffic; they can just sit back and relax, talk to their friends or family on their cells phones, and enjoy the ride to wherever they are going

You are overreacting lol How many Indians women have got car to drive? You will say that they have absolutely no rights if they don't have cars and don't know how to drive?

The Wahabis can fall to any extent in front of the Arabs Masters to please them

Arab News of Saudi Arabia ran an article titled “Not all Saudi women seeking to drive cars” which talks about how not having to look for a parking space and the luxury and comfort of having a driver means Saudi women prefer to be driven around. However, people in Saudi Arabia refuse to buy that as one reader indignantly states in a comment: [Are you kidding?! this is real life! there are single moms, divorced women, daughters with father who are sick, wives who need to care for their husbands, mothers who have to attend to their children’s school meetings, Muslim sisters who just want to go to the masjid to listen to Quran!] sic.

 

[Burnz]

u have a fu cking dirty mind a-hole,

get a fukin life

An Islamic Fatwa by an Islamic Imam

One of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institutions is to discipline a cleric after he issued a decree allowing women to breastfeed their male colleagues.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Breastfeeding fatwa causes stir