This week, women in Saudi Arabia achieved a rare social and political victory. After decades of being relegated to the passenger seat, of being detained for taking the wheel, women were at last granted the right to drive.
King Salman, ruler of the conservative Middle East nation, on Tuesday issued a decree that will allow Saudi women to obtain a licence for the first time in the country’s history. The decision – part global PR move, part attempt to modernise the oil-dependant kingdom’s economy – is slated to come into effect in June 2018.
Until then, women will continue living as they always have – reliant on men for mobility.
The daily reality of this is stranger and more unsettling than most would realise.
For one, Saudi Arabia has no public transport system.
This means more affluent women tend to employ chauffeurs, while the less fortunate must look to strangers, their husbands, fathers, even their male children to get around.
As Sydney-based Saudi woman and Women2Drive activist, Manal al-Sherif, told Mamamia‘s Rachel Corbett on The Project last night, “Imagine when your son who is nine years old, you allow him to drive your car, because you cannot drive it. Imagine the women who gave up all these jobs because she couldn’t find someone to take her to her job.”
According to the country’s own General Authority for Statistics, 34 percent of Saudi women were unemployed in 2016, and there’s little question that the driving ban is partly responsible.