And in response to Tina, another comment I’d like to make is that there are many drivers in the Kingdom who after driving a woman off to work, may in fact use HER car the rest of the day as an impromptu taxi business! I have one friend who remarked she started to notice little stains or perfume smells and other little things in her car and subsequently learned her driver was moonlighting with her car!

I’m sure not letting the women drive in Saudia definately keeps alot of the men employed! I often wonder if this could play any part in not letting the women drive. I of course already know the “rediculous” reasons for not letting them drive. God forbid, it may actually be fun for the women to drive, it may give them some sense of freedom and independence,and of course then they would not be relying on their husbands all the time. That may be an underlying issue with these men too. Maybe underneath it all,they’re so insecure about their women and their where-abouts and possibly the feeling of not being “needed”! These are,of course,just stabs in the dark but it does make you often wonder,how something as little as females wanting to drive a car, has caused such a stir with these men!

I think the gov’t made a great mistake by delaying the approval for over 20 years. Now with so much of a build up between ideologies in Saudi as liberal and conservative, and them turning not into an extreme counteract/reaction to one another instead of well developed schools of philosophy and thought-now any immediate preferance given away by the gov’t will put the gov’t in a sensitive spot of taking sides. Whenever the issues is opened again in main stream media, I imagine it is the gov’t touching water to see if it time yet.

Personally, I’m a strong believer in the sincere intentions of current King Abdulla. I’ve met with him once during National Dialogue finale event, he entered to the ladies’ section with white sport shoes and without head attire. He smiled so kindly and said “I wish I can shake hands with you all, but I’m afraid you’d get angry!” Then he discussed his plan to eventually lower conservative influence around the kingdom.

I started off my response high spirited and hopeful, yet just as I reached this section a friend next to me was listening to youtube, where a 40 y.o Saudi lady in Jedda was abused verbally and physically by some men for opening her own restaurant, where she served both men and women.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UYsZ5vOkPnU

And we’re talking about driving in the street alone with some of these men!

We now know Omar’s true goal: World Domination! He’s not studying somewhere in London; He’s in some underground hide-out, sending out his goons, stroking a white furry cat!

Stop using the word ”feminism” just call it Women’s Islamic Rights!

I never got this bra-burning; I seriously need mine! I bet those rayon abayas would make agreat bon-fire though!

Anyway, the interests of the women in the Islamic world is ill-served by attatching themselves to a label like “Feminism” and all the history that comes with it, although it might be interesting to see women burning their bras in Cairo and Riyadh.

The Qur’an provides more than enough protection for women’s rights, what needs to happen is going back to this source to look where the deviation has been made that has seen the plight of women in the Muslim world become the way it is.

Most of what “feminists” would point to as injustice has no basis in Islamic law or scriptuures, rather most of these issues are cultural based and fly in the face of Islam.