There has been a lot of hubub about this issue, which I feel is disproportionate to the subject of equality and treatment of women around the world, e.g. female genital mutilation, mass rape, rape leading to women being legitimately punished... I have a lot of sympathy for Saudi women but the fact that they cannot drive is the least of their worries regarding gender equality so the publicity that this particular issues garners is actually patronising toward them.
Some clerics advising the legislative assembly in Saudi recently concluded that lifting the ban on women driving would lead to no more virgins, prostitution, homosexuality, pornography and divorce.
This adds fuel to the fire that this ruling has on the outside world's already Islamaphobic impression of the Middle East, it was a popular citation of 'pastor' Terry Jones, has been a source of protest of those idiot topless protesters (see previous blog) and is one of the biggest topics of the region in the West. It has become such a point of symbolism that I fear exactly because of it, the conservative authorities of Saudi will be even more resistant to lifting the ban.
Yet I somehow do not think that women driving would be a slippery slope, I think that they just may be a little more preoccupied with things like you know, being able to drive their own children to school, running errands, going to work and visiting their family and friends.
It is noble that one should want to physically protect the women in their family and society but not trusting them to resort to prostitution shows that it is not protection that they are concerned about, they actually literally believe that without legal bans women would want to whore it up. How homosexuality and pornography relates to women driving I do not know, can someone please explain this to me?? And God forbid women would want to divorce terrible husbands! Yet men there can divorce women without their presence or knowledge. Other ridiculous double standards include but are not limited to;
Women's testimony in court not being equal to that of a man; they almost always receive harsher legal punishments than men; gender dictating what ministries and restaurants they can enter; they can only do certain subjects at university; and at age 12 girls are forced to wear burkhas in public schools, the list literally goes on.
The argument for the other side of the argument is rarely cited so this is what I have gathered from the little sources I could find; Saudi is an extremely conservative country so the ruling befits this particular society just as liberalism and legalised prostitution befits other countries. Furthermore, they would not want their women to be treated as they are in the West i.e. sexually exploited and made to believe their entire self worth is from their looks. Finally, not all women want to be able to drive hence the relatively low numbers that attempt to defy the ban.
There is credence to both points of view but moreover, letting women drive as a token gesture, just as allowing them to vote was, will have no effect on the worse aspects of inequality.
See also http://raraproductions.blogspot.com/ and http://anbarrockny.blogspot.com/
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