{"id":6019,"date":"2011-09-20T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-09-20T08:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.badreputation.org.uk\/?p=6019"},"modified":"2011-09-20T09:00:28","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T08:00:28","slug":"revolting-women-women2drive-in-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2011\/09\/20\/revolting-women-women2drive-in-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolting Women: Women2Drive in Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"
This post is part of a series on the theme of women and protest. The full
series is collected under the
tag “Revolting Women”<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
So, this
happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n
In case you’ve been on the other side of the moon these past few
months, the media’s much-touted Arab Spring<\/a> had
an interesting tangent via a discussion in the Saudi\u00a0Council on
whether women in Saudi Arabia should be allowed the vote. They eventually
decided that yes, they probably
should… eventually<\/a>. We wouldn’t want to rush these
things. They won’t be able to contest the elections, of course, but
least – if King Abdullah considers the recommendations – they
may be able to cast a vote in the municipal elections.<\/p>\n
Except that this small pittance of representation didn’t seem to be
satisfactory
for women in Saudi Arabia<\/a>. So… well, see for yourselves. Here is Manal
al-Sharif driving in Saudi Arabia, and discussing what it means for her to
do so<\/a>.<\/p>\n
She was arrested and imprisoned for 10 days for daring to drive.<\/p>\n
She’s not the only one. There’s an entire site of these
vids<\/a>\u00a0(in fact<\/a>, more
than one<\/a>): women driving in Saudi Arabia, in protest at… well,
mostly not being allowed to drive.\u00a0Here’s a twitter feed<\/a> of them
doing it in style. In fact, June 17 saw 30 or 40 women behind the wheel,
following weeks of an online campaign that saw women taping or
photographing themselves driving. (If you’re wondering whether 30-40
people is a lot, consider what happened the last
time women tested this ban<\/a>. Think about what ‘punishment’
means in Saudi Arabia. Then try to imagine being one of those women out
there on 17 June.)<\/p>\n
There is, of course, a danger to conflating correlation and causality.
Yes, women protesting by driving happened to take place at about the same
time that women’s voting rights were being revived for discussion in
Saudi Arabia. It could have been a massive coincidence, and 30-40 women,
however courageous, hardly make up a political movement all by themselves.
And anyway, what
does driving have to do with political representation<\/a>?<\/p>\n
The Times<\/strong>‘s Janice Turner is pretty clear where she
stands in a now-paywalled article titled
The Freedom of the Road is a Feminist Issue<\/em>. Consider being a
woman in Saudi Arabia. Ignore all the discussions about political
representation for the moment, and focus instead on the daily grind.
You get up, you get dressed, you have to go to work or to the market
or whatever.\u00a0Luckily, your husband has hired you a car with your
very own (male) driver… and should he feel perfectly comfortable
in sexually
assaulting you<\/a>, there is nothing you can do about it.<\/p>\n
Or how about you forgo the potential dubious safety of a hired car
and opt for a taxi. Prepare to walk the streets trying to hail one:
streets where your mere presence outdoors may be cast as a sexual
provocation. Inevitably, in trying to lock women away ‘for
their own protection’,\u00a0lest they be seen by vociferous
male eyes, the Wahhabi religious laws have created a space so deeply
hostile and threatening to women that their mere presence is
transgressive. It is little wonder, then, that Manal
al-Sharif<\/a> talks about how safe she feels in her car, with her
doors locked.<\/p>\n
A person’s first car has always symbolised their freedom: be
it at 17, with their newly-minted license and the entirety of the
countryside filled with welcoming ditches to drive it into, or at
50, with a newly-issued divorce and a hesitant rediscovery of
independent living. A woman who has a car gets to choose the place
she is occupying. If she wants to leave, she is not dependent on
anyone else. What could be more terrifying to the Saudi religious
leaders? Never mind that neither the Koran nor the law bans women
from driving; they were so terrified at the freedom driving would
afford women that they went ahead and issued a fatwa<\/a>
just to be safe.<\/p>\n