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Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive
- Thread starter Dalek
- Start date
Linkstrikesback
Member
Clearly the worry is that they'd see a woman in the car next to them and the giant Saudi dingdongs they all have would become so erect they get caught in the steering wheel and cause accidents.
I call it the gaffer problem.
AgentOtaku
Member
I was deployed there in the beginning of the year. This is truly awesome news 
TheUzukiLives
Banned
I know when I'm driving and I see a woman pull up next to me, I completely lose my shit. I'm the reason why there's a ten car pileup every morning.
FUCK YES
I can imagine religious sheikhs crying right now lmao.
YES PLSSSS
Not in Jeddah tho
I can imagine religious sheikhs crying right now lmao.
YES PLSSSS
Still gotta drive around wearing this tho:
s.
Not in Jeddah tho
Motherfucker, I specified extremists. "Bearded dudes" was my choice of words for them as that's how they identify themselves.
I can't tell if your long ass "#NotAllBeards" care post is a troll or genuine. Which is something of the norm round these parts.
Kralamoonard
Member
Eh, it was never a religious issue but rather a cultural one. There isn't really a religious basis for this.
The irony is of course is that multiple sheiks were unjustly arrested in the past few weeks for speaking out against the Gulf crisis. SA caring about religious clerics who don't follow their agenda is laughable (as a side note).
Jeez what's with the hostility?
theepicoftyler
Member
ZiZ
Member
Ain't no prison big enough. Saudi Twitter is overflowing with jokes.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Please find me a religious text about women's driving. I mean, women are indisputably allowed to ride horses in Islam, but for some reason they can't drive cars ?
Also you didn't "live in Islam". You lived in Saudi Arabia. As most as Saudis want that to be true, they don't represent Islam. Islam is not a country. There is nothing pure about the rulings of Ibn Uthaymeen, Bin Baaz and the like.
Come on, we must just accept that Saudi Arabia problem is not that they based their ruling on religious texts, it's that they got the most conservative and backward people ruling their societies. So yeah, the Saudi leadership is doing everything to keep the most conservative in check. But it's more about pushing a conservative agenda than a religious one. There is a wide field in islamic thought, saying that the conservative are the most religious is really giving them a praise they don't deserve. As far as i'm concerned, there is nothing less islamic and religious than to suppress women's rights. Even worst is to do so in the name of Islam.
The word extremist was nowhere in your original post. And there are plenty of extremists who don't have beards or have more fashionable beards. It's not at all how they all identify themselves.
And don't call me a motherfucker. You seem to be very aggressive in your posts, but I doubt you'd be like that if we crossed paths in reality. You can uphold common courtesy even if it's an online conversation.
Monocle
Member
Whoa what a revolution in thinking. What's next, respecting women as equals?
*Tries to separate the religion from the conservatism.*
Neat.
*Sees clear cut example of religious conservatism.*
*Tries to separate the religion from the conservatism.*
Neat.
Mr. Giggles
Member
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
There is no religious text about women driving, so it's obviously not a religious issue. There is no country among the 54 muslims countries that have similar rules.
It's just "lazy thinking about everything arabic" at work. The same kind of thinking that make FGM or honor killing a religious issue. Like if anything negative that could come from a muslim-majority country is necessarily religious.
Evil John Locke
Member
THEM CRAZY, mirite guys?!
Nah, I'm kidding, their sexism is actually a big problem and this is welcome news. But that would have been a better OP in my opinion.
Nah, I'm kidding, their sexism is actually a big problem and this is welcome news. But that would have been a better OP in my opinion.
Night Angel
Member
While there isn't a literal passage about women driving (no shit), there's plenty in Islam (and other religions) that paints women as lesser beings. Forcing them to cover up, limiting their sexuality, and generally stripping them off rights men enjoy are part and parcel of the Quran (and other religious texts).
Pretending this and other human rights abuses in the Middle East (and elsewhere) are separate from religion is absurd. Even if said texts don't explicitly specify said abuses, they're used to justify and enforce said abuses.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I'm not saying that it's separated, i'm saying that saying that conservatives are the religious one in a society like S-A or even in the muslim world in general is really giving a great service to the conservatives of those societies.
Also, i don't believe there is anything in the Quran that point out that women are lesser beings. But maybe you know my sacred book better than me. *google english translation quran quote incoming!*
The Quran don't force women to cover up, it invite them to do so. There is no punishment established. Also, i don't know what you mean by limiting "their sexuality". All the rules that applies to women about sexuality applies to men.
Night Angel
Member
So women aren't generally cast in a subservient role in Islamic cultures? I know they sure as shit are in Christianity. But maybe everything I've heard is wrong and it's just a coincidence there are so many women's rights issues in the Middle East.
Also, saying women should cover up to please God while not requiring the same of men is completely sexist horseshit. Once again, if the texts suggesting they do so (with no punishment outlined) are then used to justify punishing women for not following the text's suggestions, what's the difference?
Yes, there are guidelines for both men and women in the texts. No, they don't impact the two equally.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
There is nothing as "islamic cultures", as there is no "christians cultures". You don't define culturally Mexico, Italy, Congo, Peru and Argentina by the fact that they are christians.
In the same way, you cannot group up Senegal, Turkey, Malaysia and Iran. Their cultures and power structure are so differents, Islam is a part of it but it's definitely not the defining factor. All gender issues that you'll find in the middle-east will exist also in the non-muslims communities of those countries. Like FGM in Egypt.
A christian egyptian is waaaaaaay more closer culturally to a muslim egyptian than with a muslim of Senegal. In the same way, a buddhist of Malaysia have much more to do with a muslim of his country than with a muslim in KSA.
It's like thinking that an US christian will be closer culturally with a christian from Kenya than that with his hindu/atheist/jewish neighbour.
Women and men are different from an islamic perspective so they do have different rulings. The fact that people use those text to invent a punishment is those people responsibilities. You're kind of finding excuses for their sexists attitudes.
Men also are called by the Quran to observe modesty and to not gaze at women, yet those same men don't invent punishment against men who don't respect those rules. People in power are hypocrites, news at '11.
The middle east has a very rich culture and heritage, but when social problems occur it often gets tangled up in multiple facets and it gets hard for some to distinguish where the problem really lies. For instance, bringing up clothing in a thread about driving when the two aren't related. One of them is religious, the other is not.
This is nowhere near the first and I assure you will not be the last. But of course LOLSaudiShitHeads is all you will see around here.
Walter White Walker
Member
That's a good turn of events.
CampbellzSoup
Member
Still gotta drive around wearing this tho:
Crank up that AC.
Good for SA, hopefully this leads to further progress down the road, and they stop forcing women to cover every centimeter of their face and bodies.
Is this a real thing you still have to wear this while driving?
RoseBell69
Member
People, you are missing something here...
"letting women drive could help the Saudi economy" implies that they are only doing it for the sake of economic growth and not because... you know... women are humans/people too. Looks like there's still a long way to go to even realize women are humans and not subhumans as well as not something to profit off of.
And as someone else has pointed out... "male drivers would not know how to handle women in cars next to them"
Sigh...
"letting women drive could help the Saudi economy" implies that they are only doing it for the sake of economic growth and not because... you know... women are humans/people too. Looks like there's still a long way to go to even realize women are humans and not subhumans as well as not something to profit off of.
And as someone else has pointed out... "male drivers would not know how to handle women in cars next to them"
Sigh...
moffattron9000
Member
This is... good news coming from Saudi Arabia? I'm pretty excited about this! As RoseBell pointed out, it's not inherently good, since the motivation's economic & still somewhat sexist, but it's still a good thing happening, even if the reasoning behind it isn't..
Well, that's one way to quell sexism, at least? Still... very oppressive, but that "Penalty for Hate Speech" thread does make me think there should be some legal repercussion.
Well, that's one way to quell sexism, at least? Still... very oppressive, but that "Penalty for Hate Speech" thread does make me think there should be some legal repercussion.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Still gotta drive around wearing this tho:
Crank up that AC.
Good for SA, hopefully this leads to further progress down the road, and they stop forcing women to cover every centimeter of their face and bodies.
Says who? Vehicles with female passengers mostly have full tints in the car. I'm sure they can remove the hijab while driving and no one can see their face.
Yea, that's a good point.
Earthbound64
Banned
Some men on here don't know how to handle women in the same room as them.
In all those cases, of course, the issue is (should be) on the man, not the women.
Still stupid. The world should be demanding these women's liberation.
In all honesty I may have caused a near miss or two because I was checking out a driver of the opposite sex.
And provide the fundamentalists more ammunition with which to paint reform as bowing to foreigners (Aka western nations, non muslims), and thus make things harder for the reformists.
I never said anything about religious text saying women can't drive. You jumped into an argument later when the point changed between me and The Guy.
Saudi Arabia is Islamic, whether you like it or not. There are different sects, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that wahabbi islam is a factor. Is Arab bedounism also a factor in a lot of these laws? Of course it is. But you can't act like the use of Islam in the country is why it is where it is today. You can argue it's a perverse version of Islam, but it's still a part of Islam.
Everything about your paragraph tells me one thing: You're a muslim, and a very proud one. I don't mean to offend you in that way. But saying Islam didn't play a factor in both the shape of Saudi's law, especially women's rights, is lying to yourself. Many ideologies can be corrupted, and Islam in Saudi Arabia is as corrupt as it gets. And it didn't need to be corrupted to have a lot of misogynistic laws either.
You asked me "what the fuck is wrong with you?" and went on a tangent about beards. My first response was me clarifying, you continued to reply to me in an aggressive manner. If you responded to me like that in real life I would call you a motherfucker because you're acting like one. Don't be an ass and don't try to gaslight people, it's not a good look.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
You clearly said in your first statement that Islam was exceptionally shittier when it's come to women as an explanation of the situation in Saudi Arabia. Not the corrupt clergy of your country, or the obscurantism of wahhabi islam, but islam.
I wonder if Saudi Arabia would be more progressive today without Islam and my guess is it wouldn't, because it's the power structure that articulate a religion in an authoritarian society, not the other way around.
And no, i don't think that you can say that something is "a perversion" and "a part" in the same time.
It would be similar as saying that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a part of the idea of Democracy and Republicanism, and that any follower of those two ideals have to acknowledge those. An idea is not tainted by those who claimed to apply it.
You have a strange view of Islam for an atheist. If you're atheist, Islam don't exist as an disincarnate entity. It's only exist by it's followers. So there is nothing like "Islam", there is only "Islam according to such and such, or in such or such country legislation". And there i could agree with you.
But, as a believer, i believe that Islam exist objectively as a divine revelation, outside and above the people who claim to follow it, so if you say that "Islam have a lot of misogynistic laws", i can't agree, since i don't see any such kind of law being part of the islamic revelation. I can definitely see those in the books of islamic jurisprudence men have written, or in the laws that others mens have defined. But, as i studied the Quran and learned enough of the arabic language to be able to bypass men's translations, i can affirm that there is nothing misogynistic in the Revelation in itself.
The Quran itself isn't sexist, except for when it says inheritance should be divvied up with men earning twice as much as women, two female witnesses are needed to be equivalent to one male witness in court, a man is allowed to marry multiple women but not vice versa, a man can also have side women out of wedlock, etc etc. All passages from the book itself and not Hadith.
But yeah, not sexist at all.
But yeah, not sexist at all.
inb4 out of context, historic interpretation, it's just a metaphor etc - been in the religion myself and I was taught to use these excuses myself. Thankfully I'm out of that mentality now.
Every country tries to justify dumb shit with its religion or culture including our own country making an ass of itself this Sunday about the flag. SA is just another (albeit extreme) example of that. I applaud any progress and I applaud this. The optics are bigger than the gesture.
Evo Shandor
Member
What will their insurance rate be?
No one is gaslighting you. Your clarification was you dodging the point and you are now resorting to childish insults. This is obviously a pointless discussion since you want to act like an internet tough guy.
And they have successfully exported their backwater neanderthal culture to various countries including mine. My country cancelled an Oktober fest because of religious protests.
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