Does Driving Drive You Crazy?

What would you do if you couldn’t drive your children to school, piano lessons, or soccer practice? What about the grocery store for that forgotten ingredient to make dinner? How about the emergency room in the middle of the night if you were home alone with a sick child? Well, that’s the reality for mothers in Saudi Arabia, the only country on planet earth that forbids women to drive. (And vote, and wear the clothing they want, and leave their home without a male escort.)

 

It should be said that there isn’t an actual law on the books that bans female drivers, but there is something just as powerful: a fatwah, or religious edict, imposed by Muslim clerics who manage to control something as commonplace as driving. The idea is that by forbidding women to drive, they are protecting them from the temptation of interacting with male strangers. The problem is, Saudi women who don’t have a male relative willing or able to drive them around all day have to employ a “male stranger” as a live-in driver, costing around $300-$400 dollars a month. How does that make sense? And what about the women who can’t afford a driver, and don’t have a male relative interested in taking them to the grocery store every time they run out of hummus? Too bad.

 

But last month, one Saudi mother decided enough was enough when her driver suddenly quit, so she drove her son to school all by her little self. Blasphemy! This 45-year-old woman has three driver’s licenses: two in other Arab countries, and one international. How does this foolishness persist in the year 2011?

 

I’m a fan of perspective checks. I might be weird this way, but I always appreciate hearing a story or having an experience that makes me feel a little like I’m being put in my place. Learning about this Saudi mother was one of those moments. Think of how much most mothers complain about the hours we spend in the car driving our children to and fro. What if we couldn’t? It’s easy to forget how wildly fortunate most of us are in terms of our personal freedoms.

 

Last Friday the 24th, several Saudi women showed support for a campaign to end the ban on women driving by doing just that: driving. While the group of women behind the wheel was small, there were no arrests reported even though the “drive-in” was well advertised on Facebook. Maybe change is possible after all. For mothers like Najla, who transgressed the religious law by simply taking her child to school, I certainly hope so.

 

So when my country’s independence day rolls around on July 4th and I’m driving my kids to the parade and the swimming pool with the windows down, I think I’ll feel a little more respect and gratitude for the freedom I have to do something as simple as take my kids out to dinner.

 

I just may go to a drive-in.