Saudi Women Get Behind the Wheel

Saudi Women Get Behind the Wheel

Saudi women are now getting behind the wheel in the Muslim holy land as a protest for banning them from driving. Many Muslim scholars have issued decrees saying that there is no basis for a ban on women driving, and many women already drive in rural areas in Saudi Arabia.

Today’s protest centers on Manal al-Sharif, who was arrested for a little over a week after posting a YouTube video of herself driving a car and discussing why Saudi government should legalize driving.

"Not all of us live luxurious lives and are spoilt like queens and have drivers," she said in the video. "What if there's an emergency, what's a woman to do," she said, noting that if a woman's husband has a heart attack, she sometimes has no way to get him to the hospital. "Women are ignorant and illiterate when it comes to driving. You'll find a woman with a PhD, a professor at a college, and she doesn't know how to drive."

Al-Sharif also explained that it is sometimes unsafe for an unmarried woman to ride with a cabby or chauffeur.Earlier this month, a Saudi woman was raped by her chauffeur.

In the fashion of most movements in the Arab spring, Al-Sharif is advertising for her automotive women's rights movement via social media like Twitter.Women supporting Al-Sharif and the Saudi woman’s right also organized a similar protest in Washington DC Wednesday to drive circling the Saudin Arabian Embassy.

Posted by Sophia Andrews on Friday June 17 2011, 10:33 AM EST. Ref: International Business Times. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0