“Women should be given the option to drive.” This was the feedback I got from many readers who read last week’s column about women not driving in Saudi Arabia any time soon. Other readers pointed out that there is nothing contrary to Islam in women driving — and that cars have replaced camels which were common in the days of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Though in principle I agree with both, I still believe that driving for women here is a more complicated issue than many think. My reason for saying that is not to oppose the idea but to address a problem that has been common for years: prejudice against women. Sometimes when I consider the idea of women driving here, I laugh and say to myself: “Uttering a woman’s name is still a social taboo here. How in the world can we expect women to get behind the wheel of a car?”
It takes no genius to realize that Saudi Arabia is a male-dominated country. From the first second you set foot in King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah or King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh you see only men. The airport staff is all male; the people at the Saudi Arabian Airlines counters are all male; the passport officials are all male; and the car rental employees are all male. I would not blame a first-time visitor for thinking that creatures from outer space had zapped all the women. But sadly, the fact is that women have no public presence whatsoever in Saudi Arabia. They exist only behind closed doors. The idea that our society sees a public female presence as a threat to its customs is utterly misplaced and wrong in the 21st century. For too long we have been a handicapped society, a society which relied on only half the country’s human resources — the male half. Before we discuss the matter of women driving, we should begin to allow them to take a more active role in society. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd called for this in his speech to the Shoura Council.
Last year on a trip to Dubai I saw something that showed me what could be done. I saw Emirati women in hijab working at Dubai Airport stamping passports at immigration counters. Other women, also wearing abaya and hijab, were working as PR representatives for the Dubai Summer Festival, greeting visitors, taking their passports and finishing the visitors’ paperwork while they remained comfortably seated. These were not foreign women. They were all Emirati nationals. Was their work shameful or disgraceful as some people here in Saudi Arabia would think? Were they causing a public scandal by working in public with men? No, they were not. But as we know, perceptions and ideas all boil down to mentality.
And how do you get people to change their mentality? Where do we start?
Currently the prevailing custom in Saudi Arabia is that women and men should never mix, in any way, in public or at work. The other part of this custom is that women are limited to roles in education and teaching. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and Crown Prince Abdullah have both made historic speeches about the need for women to have a greater role in society. In fact, a part of the king’s speech to the Shoura pointed out that all “social barriers” which hinder women’s progress, such as customs and traditions which are not rooted in Islam, should be done away with. The question still remains, however, as to how fast this can be done. How fast does the government want us to move regarding women’s rights and their public role in developing the country? A pace that is too fast could result in major reversals and a pace that is too slow will leave us lagging even farther behind. Bearing in mind that Saudi Arabia has experienced an outward development over the past 70 years — electricity, roads, schools, hospitals — we must also admit that many other things have not changed at all. We have leaped from camels, mud houses, tents, and rigid traditions to paved streets, satellite TVs, mobile phones and modern cities. But during that leap from “A” to “D”, society did not pass through stages “B” and “C” as other nations have done. We are now at “D” though many people’s mentality remains at “A.” So how indeed are we to implement changes in society? And from where and by whom are the changes to come?
