http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28drive.html?ref=world
Saudis Rethink Taboo on Women Behind the Wheel
By HASSAN M. FATTAH
Published: September 28, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Sept. 27 - In a recent episode of Saudi Arabia's
most popular television show, broadcast during Ramadan this month, a Saudi man
of the future is seen sitting in his house as his daughter pulls into the
driveway, her children piled into the back of the car.
"Where have you been?" the father asks.
"The kids were bored, so I took them to the movies," she replies,
matter-of-factly, as she gets out of the driver's seat.
The scene may appear mundane, but in Saudi Arabia, where women are forbidden to
drive - and, by the way, where there are no movie theaters, either - the skit
portends something of a revolution. From a taboo about which there could be no
open discussion, a woman's right to drive is becoming a topic of growing and
lively debate in Saudi Arabia.
Coming after other recent changes - women may now travel abroad without male
accompaniment (though male permission is still required), seek divorce and own
their own companies - the driving discussion is noteworthy. Whether it signals
that women will actually be driving soon or merely talking about it openly
remains to be seen.
"We are telling everyone this is coming, whether today or tomorrow," said
Abdallah al-Sadhan, producer, writer and host of "Tash Ma Tash" ("No Big
Deal"), a variety comedy show that is broadcast during Ramadan and tackles
controversial social issues in Saudi Arabia. Other episodes have also shown
women driving in what Mr. Sadhan says is a deliberate message. "There will be a
time we will accept it, so now is the time to get prepared for that."
In another popular Saudi show, "Amsha Bint Amash" ("Amsha, Daughter of Amash"),
a woman who loses her father is forced to move to the city, where she
masquerades as a man to become a taxi driver.
Saudi newspapers have begun writing about the implications and acceptability of
having women drive. The Saudi National Human Rights Association has begun
researching the effect of women's driving on families and Saudi society,
activists said.
A group of Saudi women have led a petition drive asking the king to repeal the
ban on driving by women, placing the issue at the heart of a discussion about
modernity and Saudi Arabia's place in the world. And the government, which was
hostile toward the last such petition in 1990, now seems mildly receptive.
"You get the feeling that they are preparing the population for this issue,"
said Wajeha al- Huwaider, 45, one of the organizers. "It is just like the
decision to allow women education. They resisted it, but now it's a reality."
On Sunday, Ms. Huwaider and some 1,100 other women sent the petition to King
Abdullah.
Some Saudi officials and religious men agree with the women that Islam does not
forbid women to drive. In the past, Saudi women were able to move freely on
camel and horseback, and Bedouin women in the desert openly drive pickup trucks
far from the public eye.
Clerics and religious conservatives maintain that allowing women to drive would
open Saudi society to untold corruption. Women alone in a car, they say, would
be more open to abuse, to going wayward, and to getting into trouble if they
had an accident or were stopped by the police. The net result would be an
erosion of social mores, they say.
In 1990, a group of prominent Saudi women seized on the presence of Western
news media covering the first Persian Gulf war, boarded cars and drove through
a Riyadh boulevard. Several of the women were jailed briefly; many lost high
positions in schools and universities, and others were forced to leave the
country for some time.
This time, however, the women are being given wide latitude to make their case,
Ms. Huwaider said. She believes that this is because the case is being made in
pragmatic social and economic terms, not purely as a matter of women's rights.
Because of the rising cost of living in Saudi Arabia, women have been entering
the work force in large numbers. That in turn has given them new economic clout
in the family and greater leverage.
Ebtihal Mubarak, another organizer of the petition drive, who is an editor at
Arab News, an English-language daily newspaper, said the cost of a driver had
begun to impinge on Saudi families. "Most middle-class people can't afford
drivers anymore," she said.
Saudi women say the seeming momentum behind the issue is fueled in part by what
they can now see and read about the freedoms of women abroad on satellite
television and the Internet. They also feel they have become more sophisticated
in dealing with the Saudi system.
"This is more organized and is a real campaign," said Khalid Al-Dakhil,
professor of political sociology at King Saud University in Riyadh. "They have
been on the Net, sending out e-mails."
Still, few expect any change to come soon. Ms. Huwaider said the group had so
far received no reply from the palace to the petition. Even women's rights
advocates said lifting ban would mean much preparation and public education,
for women and men.
"Fifty years ago, we rejected the mail and then we advanced," said Mr. Sadhan,
the television producer. "We refused radio, only to accept it, and then
rejected TV, and only to accept that, too. We will accept women driving some
day all the same, and the environment has to be prepared for it."
Rasheed Abou-Alsamh contributed reporting from Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
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