Licentiousness, Oh My!

One cannot have "licentiousness" breaking out in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Wahhabi-brand Islamism deplores the very thought that women might feel entitled to behave in their country just as women normally do anywhere else in the world. Saudi women have accepted many insults to their human rights under the imprint of a Islamist-purist paternalism, demonstrating misogyny writ large.

They dress in dark, body-and-head-concealing garments, take care not to venture in public without male family members in attendance and seek written permission from their husbands or fathers to travel, have a bank account, marry or divorce. The 2009 Global Gender Gap Report produced by the World Economic Forum gave Saudi Arabia a 130 ranking out of 134 countries for gender parity.

In preparation for another one of those unsettling incidents by some young Saudi women bold enough to challenge the prevailing phallocentric society to their right as independent spirits to drive a vehicle rather than be seated quietly in the back seat while a male driver takes them about, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Turki al-Faisal warned that cyber-dissident laws would be brought to anyone supporting the women-driving campaign.

A five year prison sentence could result from a conviction on such a charge, along with the imposition of stiff fines, according to a Saudi consultant on cyber laws. The authority of the kingdom is not to be flouted. In a clear demonstration of just how serious a violation of Saudi tribal norms was being proposed by those arrogant Saudi women insisting they have the right to drive themselves to appointments, 150 clerics and religious scholars waged a protest outside a royal palace.

They vehemently stated, with appropriate religious fervor, that women had no right to oppose laws they did not agree with. They complained that Saudi authorities were not adequately reacting to ban women from challenging the driving ban. After all, as one prominent cleric warned, driving threatened the propensity to corrupt female ovaries.

These challenges to male clerical authority are not new; back in 1995 during the first of such protests 50 women were jailed, had their passports confiscated, and lost their jobs.

A Saudi woman drives a vehicle in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. Photo by AP

The situation is definitely improving, despite the clerical protests.  This time around, a mere 14 women were arrested in the capital Riyadh, and the the western cities of Jeddah and Mecca. Saudi women may yet consider the Women2Drive campaign in 2013 a success this time around. 

Activists published over a dozen videos on YouTube with women defiantly driving in the only country of the world where women are not permitted to drive.
"As we expected, women drove peacefully.  ... The campaign will continue to normalize driving in our country, whose laws permit the exercise of this right", announced the determined and empowered campaigners on their web site.

Although there is no law that prevents Saudi women from driving, driver's licenses are not issued to women. The campaign's Twitter account announced the organizers' vows to continue their battle in their patriarchal society.