Some families are torn between embracing or resisting changes
new york — Saudi Arabia 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.
“I’ll have to be accommodating to the whole society,” Shahd said in a cafe in her hometown of Buraidah in central Saudi Arabia, where it’s rare to see a woman’s face exposed in public. “I don’t think it’s right to force something upon them.”
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. Change has come abruptly since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman charted out plans to wean Saudi Arabia off oil two years ago. Some Saudi families are torn between embracing or resisting changes. “In itself, the fact of women driving is likely to become normalised relatively quickly,” said Graham Griffiths, a senior analyst at global risk consultancy Control Risks. “However, as part of a broader revolution in gender roles in Saudi society, this will have longer-term implications for society, which could still cause considerable social upheaval by creating deep divisions.”
Prince Mohammed has opened cinemas, loosened gender segregation, curbed the powers of the religious police and allowed music to be played in public.
The culture shock is less pronounced in cosmopolitan centres like Riyadh or Jeddah because it wasn’t uncommon for parents to be comparatively flexible with their daughters, at least in more wealthy
households. Many even got licences while studying or vacationing abroad and have swapped them for Saudi ones, proudly splashed in selfies across social media.
It’s a bigger adjustment in outlying regions like Qassim, nicknamed Saudi Arabia’s Texas.
The province, whose biggest city is Buraidah, has established a driving school for women, but it’s not open yet.
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.
“Driving is one way of moving women of this country to the future” “Our problem now is shame and customs, not Shariah,” said 43-year-old Asma Al Musleh.
Al Musleh is too scared to get behind the wheel herself, but her 18-year-old daughter Reefa who grew up in the Internet age has fewer hangups. She’ll wait until “after things quiet down and people become convinced.”
Acclimatising will happen more quickly in pockets like Dhahran, an eastern coastal enclave that’s long been exposed to foreigners and heavily shaped by the American origins of Aramco, which is headquartered there.—
In itself, the fact of women driving is likely to become normalised relatively quickly Graham Griffiths, An analyst