Interesting AP article about the issue of women and driving in Saudi Arabia. Here’s a few bits, but it’s worth clicking over and reading the whole thing:
He just wanted his colleagues in the government’s legislative arm to discuss the possibility of conducting a study into the feasibility of reversing the ban on women drivers … the only prohibition of its kind in the world.
But Consultative Council member Mohammad al-Zulfa’s proposal has unleashed a storm in this conservative country where the subject of women drivers remains taboo. […] There even have been calls to kick al-Zulfa from the council and strip him of his Saudi nationality. […]
Conservatives, who believe women should be shielded from strange men, say driving will allow a woman to leave home whenever she pleases and go wherever she wishes. Some say it will present her with opportunities to violate Islamic law, such as exposing her eyes while driving or interacting with strange men, like police officers or mechanics.
“Driving by women leads to evil,” Munir al-Shahrani wrote in a letter to the editor of the Al-Watan daily. “Can you imagine what it will be like if her car broke down? She would have to seek help from men.” […] The driving prohibition has forced families to hire live-in drivers, who, strangely, are allowed to be alone with women. […]
Many women activists also welcomed al-Zulfa’s suggestion. But others lashed out at him for using the issue to project himself as a reformer.
I wonder why those fundamentalist islamists (or whatever religions that implies on male “superiority”) don’t throw their wads of money in a research to create some artifficial womb, in order to get rid of those “quasi-human” beings (at last, it would keep a lot of money out of finnancing terrorism…)
how stupid, they are putting all the responsiblity for men’s sexual control on the woman, instead of expecting men to control their own functions, heavy forbid a woman should even look at a man for a brief second or show an ankle, the poor man would just be beside himself and not be able to contain his sexual excitment.
PLEEEEEEEEZE.!!
RR