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Women can finally drive in Saudi Arabia, but other anti-women laws will remain in force

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Saudi Arabia has gone from being the poorest to being the richest country in the world. But they have learnt nothing of women’s equality.

The ban on women driving was lifted by Saudi Arabia this week. From June 2018, women will be allowed to drive cars. This is very good news indeed. Women had taken to the streets demanding the right to drive cars back in 1990. Forty seven women had driven cars in Riyadh. All 47 were arrested. Some of them lost their jobs.

Can it be that the Saudi state, which is so anti-woman has suddenly started believing in women’s freedom? No, that is not so. Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving has been criticized by the whole world, particularly by the European nations and the United States. They are seen as a nation that oppresses women by those very nations who trade with them. They are the ones who buy oil. The hundreds of questions Saudi Arabia has to face as a result was a cause for embarrassment. The price of oil cannot be increased, nor can the economy be re-energized further. It is because of this that the Saudi government has decided to allow women to drive.

One could say that the decision by the anti-women state was prompted by a desire to save themselves from fierce criticism. All these years women had to count on male relatives to drive them around. Now they can drive themselves and save on taxi fare.

A Saudi Arabian minister had stated that women risk damaging their reproductive systems by driving cars. Some time back, a Saudi Imam defended the prohibition on women drivers, saying the female brain is one-fourth the size of the male brain. Such malicious attitudes towards women have not evaporated from the minds of Saudi men. The same hatred continues unabated.

The news of the prohibition being lifted was greeted by a flurry of messages on WhatsApp by conservative Saudis, claiming they will not allow the right to be exercised by women. They say if women are allowed to drive, they will interact with men to whom they are not related, and thus break the law.

I do not think that these anti-female prejudices will disappear from the minds of Saudi Arabians easily. The burkha will continue to remain mandatory for every woman. Should a strand of hair or two escape into public view – you’ve had it! Every woman will have to move around covered head-to-toe in the burkha, whether they are walking down the street or driving a car.

Women will drive cars, but the anti-women laws will remain in force. If a woman is raped, she will be the one penalised for it. To prove rape, one must present four witnesses who can testify. There is no word in the Saudi dictionary for ‘rape’ – it is referred to as ‘transgression.’ The penalty for a transgression must be paid by both parties. The rapist, logically, may be punished. But why should the survivor also be punished?

If a woman is spotted with a non-relative male, she has already committed transgression. If a woman is abducted and gang-raped, it is the woman’s fault. And if she is unable to present four witnesses, she faces the same penalty as the rapists. Where is a woman supposed to find witnesses? Do rapists allow bystanders to witness their acts?

Saudi women cannot travel abroad without permission from their husbands. If they have to undergo medical treatment, the too the husband’s permission is required. Without the permission of a male guardian, women are not allowed to marry, to divorce, to go to school or college, to work, conduct business or to open a bank account. A woman’s guardian can be her father, her husband, her brother, uncle or son. Acquaintance with any male who is not a relative is prohibited.

In 2013, a woman was seriously injured in a road accident. Only an amputation of her arm could have saved her life. The operation could not be conducted simply because no male-guardian could be found, whose permission would be necessary. She had a husband, but he had died in that same accident.

Manal al-Sharif, a Saudi women’s rights activist – who drove a car one night in 2011, recorded a video of it, uploaded it on Youtube and was consequently jailed – said that now that the ban on women driving has been lifted, the laws of male guardianship must be fought. The laws that prevent women from leading regular, everyday lives without male guardians must be opposed. Women are their own guardians – and this must be established. Manal is voicing these demands quite forcefully. But she would not have been able to do it had she been in Saudi Arabia. She can make these claims because she is currently in Australia.

Women who demand freedom are driven out of the country. How long can this go on?

Saudi Arabia has gone from being the poorest to being the richest country in the world. Over the course of this enormous transformation, they have acquired mining technologies and modern medical training from the West, but they have learnt nothing of women’s equality.

Saudi Arabia is not lacking in women-hating men. Sadly, there are many women-hating women too. The brain-washing, evidently, has been successful.

A 2006 survey shows that 89 percent women believe they should not be allowed to drive and 86 percent women believe they should not be working side-by-side with men, on equal terms. Ninety percent Saudi women, however, do not want the guardianship laws to be repealed. It saddened me when I see women themselves are happy to sell their self-respect.

Whenever I speak of women’s equality, people think I want a matriarchal system. They get easily scared, thinking that the disintegration of the patriarchy will be followed by oppression of men. It surprises me, why men cannot think of a humanistic society! Most men are opposed to the idea of building a society on the principles of equality, uniform laws, and empathy. We are the same species, but one half grinds the other down through brute force, one half has been exploited by the other. Men continue to act in ways that are profoundly embarrassing.

Translated by Sujaan Mukherjee

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