Saudi Arabia's women drivers get ready to steer their lives

 

Driving instructor Ahlam al-Somali (R) reads instructions before getting ready to drive with trainee Maria al-Faraj at Saudi Aramco Driving Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

 

DHAHRAN, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - On June 24, when Saudi women are allowed to drive for the first time, Amira Abdulgader wants to be sitting at the wheel, the one in control, giving a ride to her mother beside her.

 

"Sitting behind the wheel (means) that you are the one controlling the trip," said the architect, dressed in a black veil, who has just finished learning to drive. "I would like to control every single detail of my trip. I will be the one to decide when to go, what to do, and when I will come back."

 

Abdulgader is one of about 200 women at the state oil firm Aramco taking advantage of a company offer to teach female employees and their families at its driving academy in Dhahran to support the social revolution sweeping the kingdom.

 

"We need the car to do our daily activities. We are working, we are mothers, we have a lot of social networking, we need to go out - so we need transport," she said. "It will change my life." (Click for Wider Image picture essay https://reut.rs/2thn2qN )

 

Trainees attend a lesson at Saudi Aramco Driving Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, June 6, 2018. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

 

Women make up about five percent of Aramco's 66,000 staff, meaning that 3,000 more could eventually enroll in the driving school.

Last September, King Salman decreed an end to the world's only ban on women drivers, maintained for decades by Saudi Arabia's deeply conservative Muslim establishment.

 

But it is his son, 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is the face of the wider social revolution.

 

Many young Saudis regard his ascent to power as proof that their generation is finally getting a share of control over a country whose patriarchal traditions have for decades made power the province of old men.

 

For Abdulgader, June 24 will be the day to celebrate that change, and there is only one person she wants to share it with.

 

"On June 24, I would like to go to my mother's house and take her for a ride. This is my first plan actually, and I would like really to enjoy it with my mother. Just me and my mother, without anyone else."

 

(Reporting by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Alison Williams)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-06-19

Thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, some aspects of Saudi life are moving into the 20th century.

Thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, several of the woman activists who pushed for the freedom to drive are now in prison.

 

"At least 10 prominent Saudi activists, mostly women’s rights campaigners,have now been reported to have been arrested in what appears to be an escalating clampdown ahead of the much-vaunted lifting of the prohibition on women driving in the kingdom on 24 June.

The arrests, with more feared by human rights campaigners, come amid a high-profile campaign in Saudi media outlets and on social media denouncing the women as “traitors”.

According to human rights organisations working outside the kingdom, most of the women were warned in September against commenting on the lifting of the ban on female drivers, a reform initiative credited to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as on the anti-guardianship campaign."

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/21/further-arrests-saudi-arabia-womens-rights-activists-driving-ban

 

"Most of those arrested in recent days by the Saudi authorities are women who had campaigned for the right to drive, a reform that is due to come into force on 24 June and which has been touted by its leaders as a symbol of a country that is modernising its economy and social sphere."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/25/saudi-arabia-arrests-human-rights-campaigner-mohammed-al-bajadi-women-right-drive

 

57 minutes ago, ratcatcher said:

Thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, some aspects of Saudi life are moving into the 20th century.

Thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a lot of aspects of Saudi life are NOT moving into the 20th century.

 

Wonder where all those feminists are, crying out for sanctions?

prehistoric!!

1 hour ago, Ralf61 said:

Thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a lot of aspects of Saudi life are NOT moving into the 20th century.

 

Wonder where all those feminists are, crying out for sanctions?

There's plenty more where this came from.

Human rights groups condemn arrests of Saudi feminists as tainting Mohammed bin Salman's reputation as a reformer

‘Saudi Arabian authorities cannot continue to publicly state they are dedicated to reform while treating women’s rights campaigners in this cruel way,’ says one campaigner

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-arrests-feminists-women-mohammed-bin-salman-driving-ban-guardianship-a8362386.html

 

You know, if you had exercised your fingers just enough to do a  search you would have found plenty of feminist and human rights protests. Just common sense alone would tell you that should be the case. Have you been living such an isolated life that you don't know that Saudi Arabia is a perennial target of human rights activists including feminists?  You've got to engage with the news before you can make judgement who who is or isn't doing what.

1 hour ago, bristolboy said:

You know, if you had exercised your fingers just enough to do a  search you would have found plenty of feminist and human rights protests.

Sorry, I mean those so brave ones from Europe and the U.S.

20 minutes ago, Ralf61 said:

Sorry, I mean those so brave ones from Europe and the U.S.

Have you even bothered to do a search? Do you seriously believe that feminists in Euroe and the USA are reluctant or afraid to denounce what's going on in Saudi Arabia? Why would they be? What alternative world do you come from?

But I not sure they can actually buy a car or get their divers license. I read that somewhere.

Having worked for contractors to Saudi Aramco for 14 years, Saudi men would tell me that the reason women are not permitted to drive without a male relative is to ensure that, in the event of a break-down or other problem, the women would not be raped. When asked why women in other countries are not raped by male motorists, their answer was "This is Saudi Arabia, not the same." Well there you have it folks, women in Saudi Arabia when traveling without a male relative will likely be raped and as such, it's their own fault.

49 minutes ago, oldrunner said:

Having worked for contractors to Saudi Aramco for 14 years, Saudi men would tell me that the reason women are not permitted to drive without a male relative is to ensure that, in the event of a break-down or other problem, the women would not be raped. When asked why women in other countries are not raped by male motorists, their answer was "This is Saudi Arabia, not the same." Well there you have it folks, women in Saudi Arabia when traveling without a male relative will likely be raped and as such, it's their own fault.

And there was me thinking it was because women make such lousy drivers.

8 hours ago, everett kendall said:

But I not sure they can actually buy a car or get their divers license. I read that somewhere.

They do get licenses. As for the women who campaigned to get them...

Ten women just got Saudi driver’s licenses. Women who campaigned to drive are still in prison.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/05/ten-women-just-got-saudi-drivers-licenses-women-who-campaigned-to-drive-are-still-in-prison/?utm_term=.c31b6ac0b461

Interesting that in both pictures youthful trainee Maria al-Faraj does not wear the hajib.

There is the power of feminism in S.A.