It was liberating. I could get in the cool blue water of the pool with Aboudi and dunk my head, toss my hair behind me, and feel the rush of bubbles stream out of my mouth as I exhaled in the watery silence. At night, when the breeze blew, I could feel the air lifting and ruffling the strands of my hair. When I turned, I could feel the hairs plastered against my skin.
Far more than my head covering had changed. When I returned to Saudi Arabia, so many of the old rules, the rules I had once slavishly followed, no longer seemed to make sense. For years, I had blamed Aramco for the restrictions and the discrimination I endured, but now I saw that what I was chafing against was Saudi society itself. Every restrictive rule existed simply for my “protection”: this was the message that had been hardwired into my brain. But that circuit had been broken while I lived abroad. I was no longer so fearful of what people would think or what judgments would be passed. My colleagues said that the way I dressed, the way I thought, and the way I talked were all “totally different.” And it was true. I had never been exposed to the language of women’s rights or feminism. But even without the vocabulary, I discovered the concepts. There is an old Arabic proverb that translates to “If you have a right, you had better be determined.” Inside the walls of the Aramco compound, I found my determination.
In 2010, not long after I returned, I started a Facebook group called Saudi Female Employees of Aramco. It was risky and it was completely underground. To complain about anything at Aramco, or indeed anywhere inside Saudi Arabia, carried the risk of punishment. But slowly we started writing our demands. We wanted day care nurseries for babies in the workplace and to be allowed access to the company cars. We were all employees, but we were not allowed to use the company cars, unlike the men. I took our demands to Aramco’s labor committee: an organization purely for show, without any power. The only thing it did was listen to complaints, but at least this was a way to vent.
I also cofounded the first photography club in Dhahran; we called it Aurora. I had learned photography in the United States from my friend David. Back at home, I got together a group at Aramco. We took nature photographs, made portraits, and did event photography, printing our images and mostly giving them away. We met almost daily, usually in my town house. I didn’t know it yet, but this and the Saudi Female Employees of Aramco group were to become essential to my decision to get behind the wheel of a car.
There was one more thing: on December 17, 2010, a twenty-six-year-old Tunisian fruit seller named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire outside of a provincial government building. He had gone there to complain after the local police had confiscated his measuring scales when Bouazizi had refused to pay them a bribe. There were reports that a policewoman slapped him and insulted his deceased father. But the authorities denied his request to enter the building and complain. In that moment, in frustration and despair, he became a human conflagration. That incident and the mass protests that followed launched the Arab Spring, a wave of unrest that tore across the Middle East. From Tunisia it spread to Libya and to Egypt, the nation I knew from my childhood visits, where citizens flooded Tahrir Square to challenge years of dictatorial rule.
Like millions of others around the Arab world, I was riveted. I followed the news, I followed the Facebook posts. I saw raw cell phone photos and videos of demonstrators occupying major streets and squares in their capitals, demanding that their oppressive governments give up power. Seeing their faces, hearing their voices, and reading their eloquent statements, I felt connected to these people. It seemed like change might be possible. It seemed like change might be possible even for us.
In the midst of this upheaval, in April 2011, I found myself in Khobar City, leaving a doctor’s appointment at dusk, with no driver to take me home. I could stand on the corner or I could walk to Al-Rashid Mall, where there would be taxis waiting. I began to walk. Men who passed me rolled down their windows, shouting curses and calling me a “whore” or a “prostitute.” And then came the man in the white Corolla. The driver did not simply insult me and roar off, he followed me. I turned away from the main route, and he followed. As I passed a pile of construction materials, I bent down and felt a rock. Clutching it in my hand, I hurled it toward his half-open window. The rock fell short as his tires screeched and he sped off.
I could feel the adrenaline surge through my veins. I walked a few steps and then began to cry, the salty tears mixing with my salty sweat. I ran to the mall, and with my uncovered, tear-stained face found a taxi and told the driver to take me to the Aramco compound. Once inside the safety of the car, I held my face in my hands and wept. But by the time we entered the compound, my eyes were dry. At my town house, my own car waited, cool, silent, and parked. I had spent hours learning to drive, I had a valid license. I probably had better road skills than many of the male taxi and private drivers.
As I opened my door and stepped inside, I did not hate men in their cars who had seen fit to harass me. I hated the rules that caged me inside my compound, that kept women tethered to the whim of our guardians, that kept us shut inside our homes more effectively than any lock.
The next day at work, I told one of my male coworkers what had happened on the dusky streets. “I am so tired of this,” I said. “How long must we suffer this humiliation?” It seemed almost a rhetorical question.
My colleague looked at me. He was a Saudi, so I expected only perhaps a bit of sympathy, maybe some advice. Instead, he shocked me by saying, “Manal, I know it is unfair. But, you know, it really isn’t illegal for women to drive.”
At first I thought he was mocking me, but then I realized he was serious. “What do you mean, it isn’t really illegal?”
“Manal, technically, there is no rule saying that women cannot drive. Nothing in the traffic code actually states that it is illegal for women to drive. It’s just the custom. You’ll see, I’ll show you.” He left my office and a few minutes later, he sent me a link to the Saudi traffic code. In his email message, he said, “Read page 50, part V, act 36: Driver’s License requirements.”
That night, I fed my son dinner and put him to bed, and I sat down at my computer. I read the entire traffic code. At first I felt nothing but anger. Then, slowly, I began to reread each word, aloud. I went through each line of the code. There was not one reference to the gender of the driver. Pages 117 to 121 listed all possible traffic violations and offenses. None of them included “driving while female.” Nothing, absolutely nothing, in the official Saudi traffic code indicated it was illegal for women to drive.
Now I was truly angry. I wanted to call someone, to tell someone, but whom? Instead, I went back to my computer and started typing. I searched three simple words—Saudi, women, and driving.