{"id":620,"date":"2017-09-29T14:50:38","date_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:50:38","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2017-09-29T14:50:38","modified_gmt":"2017-09-29T14:50:38","slug":"a-female-view-on-what-it-means-being-allowed-to-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovin.co\/riyadh\/en\/opinion\/a-female-view-on-what-it-means-being-allowed-to-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"A Female View On What It Means Being Allowed To Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
Saudi workplace, homes and caf\u00e9 are buzzed with heated and passionate debates on women driving. There is literally no escape from these conversations and I think it\u2019s healthy no matter what the outcome of these debates is.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Women in remote areas of Saudi have always somewhat enjoyed the freedom to commute. Now with the permission to drive, the following possibilities are there for women in Saudi\u00a0<\/p>\n
1. Drive to do daily chores without relying upon personal drivers while saving more<\/h3>\n
A normal day begins with dropping off children to school, commuting back and forth to work, attending meetings, shopping, and other activities. Many women I know\u00a0 \u00a0cannot afford drivers and are solely relied upon male family members in the household for daily movement.<\/p>\n
Currently, an average household in Saudi spends SAR2000-3000 on domestic drivers per family including paying for recruitment cost of foreign drivers, providing accommodation, plane tickets, visa, license, food and medical treatment. Domestic drivers end back approximately SAR 26-30 billion in remittances back home annually. I spend around 900 SAR per month commuting to work while I depend on my father to drive us elsewhere throughout the day. Before Careem and Uber, my daily schedule would be entirely determined by the availability of my father and mood of my driver!<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
2. More women working in various professions<\/h3>\n
Due to the driving ban, some professional roles have been traditionally restricted to men despite being available for women to take up. My friends working in retail, telecom, hospitality and entry level roles in other sectors complain about why they are being unwittingly punished for not being able to drive with no government subsidized transport system while their male colleague gets to save their entire salary. For example, the minimum wage of SAR 3000 would mean a woman would pay around 700-1200 riyals per month on personal drivers or ride hailing services like uber or careem to go to work. When I applied for my first job, my worry was how much will I have to pay for transport and how much will company contribute.<\/p>\n
Working women would have more disposable income now therefore more eager to take up more professional\u00a0 \u00a0roles. \u00a0\u00a0In the near future, it may be possible for women to create women only ride-hailing services or pink taxis foster entrepreneurship,\u00a0 jobs, privacy and comfort for women commuters. I think we could have a more \u201cwomen friendly\u201d roads if we also allow women traffic police. Why not!\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
3. Owning and driving cars we always wanted<\/h3>\n
It\u2019s not unusual for me to find young women in university campuses or moms in cafes discussing the latest or greenest cars they have hoped they could drive one day! It always seemed like a dream. While women car owners will boost auto sales I hope women will not just be consumers of cars but given the opportunity to take up leadership roles in an extremely male dominated automotive industry.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Many car companies \u00a0are beefing up marketing efforts to capture the market before the ban is lifted fully in June 2018, Nissan, Volkswagon, Ford have released different campaigns.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
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