Women's Rights Social Movements

While many consider the Middle East and its civil society, they remember revolutions like Arab Spring, or the Green Revolution, the truth is that social movements play a huge role in Middle Eastern politics, not just overthrowing leaders. In fact, civil society has been full of many of these unheard-of movements making differences in people’s lives. The movement I will be highlighting is the movement for Women’s Rights, specifically in Saudi Arabia. Recently, the Women’s Rights Movement in Saudi Arabia celebrated a huge win when King Salman announced that women would be given the right to drive in September of 2017 (Hubbard). Countries, specifically those in the West congratulated the Saudi Arabian monarchy. President Trump, and the United States Department of State issued a statement remarking on the “positive step” towards equal rights (Hubbard). However, they seem to be overlooking that the government issued this decree after decades of protest and dissent of the people. There is an overall gender equality movement in the region, however there were also movements that worked specifically on the driving issue, such as the social media campaign #Women2Drive.

            I found for the most part, however, many movement campaigns used and highlighted the fact that women couldn’t drive in Saudi Arabia as a frame. It was easy to see this ban as ridiculous and to want to fight it, since women all over the world can drive; this wasn’t a sensitive issue and was not debated anywhere else. In fact, Saudi Arabia is the last country in the entire world to allow women to drive. Many of these campaigns which fought for the right to drive also had bigger goals in mind, such as ending the male guardianship laws. These oppressive laws were put into place in the 1930s, so the government could ensure societal and political control (Winsor). Guardianship laws make it so that women are almost second-class citizens and are not allowed to do fundamental things without the permission or presence of a male guardian. Women are not able to get married without approval, they cannot divorce, have custody of their children until age 7 and 9 for boys and girls respectively, get a passport, travel internationally, open a bank account, get a job, and they even cannot receive medical care without male approval (Winsor). This is still a widely debated issue in Saudi Arabia and will be the next target for these social movements after the driving law is officially in effect this coming June.

            These movements are not very old. The movement to lift the driving ban began in 1990, during the Gulf War. Saudi Women noticed that female American soldiers were allowed to drive freely around their military bases (Begum). In November of 1990, women organized the first official protests through the capital Riyadh. As we see commonly with governments dealing with protests from their citizenry, the 47 women involved were arrested, and released into the custody of their male guardians, who had to promise the women would never attempt to drive again. Up until this point, there was no official law stating that women could not drive, it was purely customary and followed by society based on their values (Begum). However, following the protest in 1990, the Council of Senior Scholars, which is Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, convened to discuss the issue. In response, they issued a “fatwa” or an edict, to prohibit driving citing social reasons. The Council believed that allowing women to drive could cause “social chaos,” such as women mixing and socializing with unrelated men. (Begum) This fatwa caused the government to issue a decree which prohibited driving, making the ban official law.

            The next part of this movement came in the early 2000s, where the rise of social allowed for their message and movement to be heard around the world. Women like Wajeha al-Huwaider, who filmed and uploaded a video of her driving in Saudi Arabia headed the new era of this movement. In 2011, the #Women2Drive movement mentioned previously was launched. This new approach using social media allowed for leaders to organize the movement, release dtaes of protests and to inspire those with international driving licenses to all drive on the street on the same day – June 17^th (Some). These protests continued for several years, resulting in the arrest, and detention of several women, who were sentenced to multiple whippings (Begum). That sentencing was eventually overturned in court. The real international recognition, however, came in 2013, when a comic posted a music video on YouTube titled “No Woman, No Drive.” This video was a parody of Bob Marley’s famous song “No Woman, No Cry,” which the comic made more “relatable” to Arabs in a satirical manner (Begum). The video quickly went viral, and currently has 15 million views. This video brought the movement international attention, which caused people to discuss the issue of women’s rights in the Middle East. While the video was most likely not originally created as a tool for the Women2Drive movement, it became instrumental in the fight.

            Clearly, there is a lot more to Middle Eastern civil society, and more protests or social movements than media reports, or the governments want the world to see. However, they play a huge role in policy decisions for lawmakers, much like in the case of Saudi Arabia and the driving ban. While this movement was successful, and social media campaigns like #Women2Drive might be ending, the movements and fight for women’s rights are far from over, and women all over the MENA region are bravely fighting for equality.

Works Cited

Begum, Rothna. “The Brave Female Activists Who Fought to Lift Saudi Arabia’s Driving Ban.”              Human Rights Watch, 29 Sept. 2017,

Hubbard, Ben. “Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive.” The New York Times, 26 Sept. 2017,

“Some Saudi Women Defy Driving Ban in Day of Protest.” BBC News, BBC, 26 Oct. 2013,

Winsor, Morgan. “Women in Saudi Arabia got the right to drive, but they still can’t do these                    things.” ABC News, Disney Media Networks, 29 Sept. 2017,