What Does “Driving” Mean for Women and Their Families in Saudi Arabia?

• In Event: 1132 - Arabs and Arab Americans

Abstract

This paper investigates the Saudi women’s lived experiences after the driving was lifted. On September 26th, 2017, King Salman issued a statement recognizing the right of women to drive compatibles with Islamic law. On June 24th, 2018, women in Saudi Arabia started getting licenses and driving.
This is an exploratory phenomenology research paper of the lived experience of Saudi women after the driving ban was lifted. The purpose is to examine the phenomena of the new role of women as “being able to drive legally”. A total of 12 Saudi women who completed anonymous online open-ended questions on a survey. Data were collected between October 2018- January 2019. All participants in this paper are educated women, more than half are employed, married with children, and are from different Saudi tribal backgrounds. The age ranges from late 20s to mid 40s.
After analyzing the data, three major themes were emerged: (a) sense of freedom, (b) new burdens, (c) who can really drive? Of those three major themes, six subthemes appeared from the data that helped to explain the phenomenon. Such as, more than half of women perceived driving as an act of freedom, in which they hope to experience independence, control, and being able to fulfil personal goals. Burdens and responsibilities merged as a second them; women fear that their role behind the wheel will increase their caregiver responsibilities. Participants also indicated their husbands and family support is a key in which it was listed in both ways; supportive factor for those who can drive also a barrier to driving for those who have not drove yet. Further, married women are more opposed the driving than those who were singles. Some married women indicate the fear that driving will have bad effects on their gender roles as seen by Islamic perceptive. Results also show that almost all women expressed their fear of driving in a male dominated space. Videos about “Saudi women in horrifying car accidents” that were posted on social media invoke participants fear of driving.

Author

• Sarah Almalki