Where in the world would females be prohibited from driving or a whole host of restrictions placed on their doing so? Does this country understand that this is the 21st century? What about the concept of human rights?
This country is Saudi Arabia. Within this bastion of the ultraconservatives, women only possess the rights of a minor. Even a woman’s minor children have more rights than they do. In most circumstances, the permission of a close senior male family member is required before they may perform many tasks. Failing that, they may defer the decision to the minor male family members.
On one issue – driving – the prohibition on females being allowed to drive is being challenged in certain quarters. For the most part, this religious objection to driving is predicated on the policy of the strict separation of males and females. It bars the mixing of sexes in most circumstances unless a male family member is present.
It would be amusing to read of the objectives if it were not so tragic. Apart from the usual reasons based on religious dogma that are advanced, one reason offered some six months ago by a Immam in Saudi Arabia went as follows: “If women are allowed to drive then they will not be able to bear offspring.”
What a medieval outdated concept? If women can perform endurance sports such as running the Comrades, then what affect will driving have on child bearing? Secondly, if that were true, then Western women would not be able to give birth any longer. Perhaps the issuers of these fatwas are so divorced from the real world that they are not even aware that driving results in no such malady.
Currently the status quo is that Saudi may in fact drive but with the proviso that they have obtained the permission from a male relative — usually a husband, father or brother — to do so.
The Saudi king’s advisory council – the Shura – has recommended that the government lift its ban on female drivers. It terms of its revolutionary proposals, they recommend the following:
- only women over 30 would be allowed to drive
- they would still require the permission from a male relative — usually a husband, father or brother — to do so
- The hours when they would be allowed to drive are as follows:
o Saturday to Wednesday – 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
o Thursdays and Friday – noon to 8 pm. The reason for this brief period is that it is the weekend in the Kingdom
Further restrictions were proposed:
- woman drivers must wear conservative dress and no make-up
- Within cities, they can drive without a male guardian in the car, but outside of cities, a male is required to be present. [Whatever that means]
Moreover the council proposes that a “female traffic department” will have to be created in order that a woman officer would deal with female drivers if their cars broke down or faced assaults. It recommended the female traffic officers be under the supervision of the “religious agencies.”
According to the Time magazine:
The driving ban has long forced families to hire live-in drivers for women. Women who can’t afford the $300 to $400 a month for a driver must rely on male relatives to drive them to work, school, shopping or the doctor.
The ban is part of the general restrictions imposed on women based on strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Genders are strictly segregated, and women are required to wear a headscarf and loose, black robes in public. Guardianship laws require women to get permission from a male relative — usually husband or father, but lacking those, a brother or son — to travel, get married, enroll in higher education or undergo certain surgical procedures
The latest reports have indicated that these proposals have been overturned or severely curtailed as being too radical and immoral as they will result in “licentious” behaviour by Saudi women.
When I read these proposals, I am eternally grateful that neither my wife or my daughter lives under such oppressive restraints.