For some Saudi women, licences will be a secret
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s monarch may have opened the door for Saudi women like Shahd to start driving, but she still needs to sneak out of the house to take lessons.
The 26-year-old business student knows she’s in for a battle to convince her parents because in their community, some would find it shameful to see a woman behind the wheel. Once she gets a licence, she’ll stow it in a drawer until she musters up the courage to ask.
Even as the kingdom ends the legal ban on Sunday, Shahd’s conundrum shows how daunting it will be for many Saudi women to suddenly transcend ingrained traditions that have limited their freedom during decades of state-imposed patriarchy. Guardianship laws bar them from traveling or getting married without approval of a male relative, usually a father or husband but occasionally even a son.
Change has come abruptly since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman charted out plans to wean Saudi Arabia off oil two years ago, which will be tough to do if half its population is disempowered. Yet at the same time as expanding women’s rights and social freedoms, he’s jailed women who campaigned to drive for years and come down hard on opponents to his reform agenda.
Saudi families are torn between embracing or resisting changes that clerics and government officials had spent years portraying as sinful. Some are concerned that their rulers are pandering to the West in a way that violates their traditions and religion.
Prince Mohammed has opened cinemas, loosened gender segregation, curbed the powers of the religious police and allowed music to be played in public, overturning longstanding restrictions rooted in a rigid interpretation of Islam.
Women interviewed by Bloomberg were conflicted, eager to drive but also wanting to respect that their cultures will take time to adapt. Two said they’d been adventure driving in the desert for years beyond the public gaze.
Others said their parents worry letting them drive will tarnish their reputation with neighbours. For traditional Saudi families, providing for women, including chaperoning them around, is regarded as a way of bestowing honour on them.