My heart began to beat faster as I turned the key, heard the engine catch, put my foot on the brake, and switched the car into reverse. My decision to drive had been made in a moment of anger, but now I felt pure calm rise up inside me. I was committed to driving because I was convinced, after having read and understood the traffic code, that there was nothing actually forbidding me from doing so. I believed it would be okay. So it was an odd combination of fear and fearlessness I felt as I pulled out onto the main road.
I had already handed my iPhone to Wajeha and showed her how to turn on the camera and shoot the video. As the car glided down the street, I began to compose my thoughts for the video’s introduction. I wanted to declare in a clear, loud voice, “This is my right, the right to drive.” But instead, I turned the wheel of the car and gazed straight ahead, feeling the iPhone hovering close to my face. After chatting casually for a few minutes in Arabic, I said, “There’s something to be proud of in this country. There are people doing volunteer work, doing it without pay, to help the women of this country. We are ignorant and illiterate when it comes to driving. You’ll find a woman with a PhD, a professor at a college, and she doesn’t know how to drive. We want change in the country.”
As I turned the steering wheel, I could feel the words slip out of my mouth. It was hardly the stuff of protest; it was a conversation I had started simply to keep myself calm. At that moment, the driving did not feel all that different from the driving that I did on a daily basis inside the Aramco compound. But it was completely different. I felt Wajeha’s eyes on me and her presence as a witness. I felt the gaze of the camera as a witness. Like other people of my generation, who had been gathering in city squares and on street corners across North Africa and the Middle East, who were raising their voices and their hands and using their cell phones and cameras to stand up to repression, authoritarianism, and tradition, we were at that moment pushing back against one of Saudi Arabia’s most enduring cultural taboos. We were taking a chance to express the basic aspirations of Saudi women. With Wajeha beside me, I felt that we were now in “the driver’s seat of our own destiny.”
As I kept driving, adjusting my hijab and sunglasses again, Wajeha added, “Today there was a report in Al Riyadh newspaper that a sister took her brother to the hospital in her car. But a woman is not just for an emergency. A woman has the same right as a man to live her daily life—in dignity,” she said. I nodded, even as I kept my eyes on the road.
We continued, speaking about women who pay as much as a third of their monthly salaries to hire a private driver. Many of these drivers work for multiple women; what would be a ten-minute trip can take one or two hours as the driver circles the area, picking up all the other women. We talked about the hour-plus wait for a taxi during rush hour, about standing on the roadside as hired drivers humiliate us because they want more money than we are offering. We talked about mothers who cannot drop their children at school when their husbands are away, about mothers who put their ten-year-old sons behind the wheel so they can leave their homes. As we spoke, I negotiated the traffic, obeyed the lights and signs, and rounded the roadway’s curves.
I looked left and turned down Corniche Street, heading toward the supermarket where I shopped for groceries each week—and where, previously, I could only go with a male driver. I let the steering wheel glide smoothly in my hands as I made the turn, looking out so I could make eye contact with any oncoming drivers. A silver Toyota SUV approached, and I saw the male driver lean slightly to his right and speak to a woman seated next to him. They looked at each other and then back at me. I smiled, and Wajeha asked, “Why are you smiling, Manal?”
For a second, I turned to face the iPhone in her hands, smiled even wider, and said, “Because I am driving.”
For several minutes, I circled the parking lot, watching as various drivers noticed me, until finally I slowed the car and turned into a parking space. Then I said, “Come on, Wajeha,” I said. “Let’s go shopping.” Wajeha turned off the cell phone, and together we exited the car.
The parking lot was crowded with foreign male drivers, standing outside their cars, waiting for their female clients. Their eyes widened and followed us; I could hear several whisper to each other in Hindi or Urdu. But no one confronted us. I felt a bit like a child breaking the rules, but I also knew this was far more serious than a childhood prank. Every gaze seemed to burn into my skin.
“Wajeha, let’s get some groceries,” I said. “I’d like to get my son a treat.” She nodded and waved her hand, indicating that I should enter the supermarket first. I pulled my hijab tight around my head and didn’t remove my sunglasses. From just inside the store, I saw a man lean over and whisper something to his coworker. We moved through the aisles, placing items in our shopping basket: a bottle of water, a piece of fruit, a candy bar for Aboudi. At the checkout counter, the two of us stood side by side, saying nothing as I pulled out my wallet. We walked proudly through the parking lot, opened the car doors, and got back in. Only then did Wajeha and I look at each other and break into spontaneous laughter, calling out together, “We did it!”
I placed my slightly sweaty hands on the wheel, turned on the ignition, and said, “Okay, Wajeha, let’s keep driving.” She began to film again, but I barely spoke. Instead, I took in the space and power of the car and the undeniable sense of victory. I knew then that no matter what my future held, I had done something important and meaningful. That day, I felt I was driving for all Saudi women—and in a sense, I was.
As I drove, I contemplated what route my driver usually took after leaving the grocery store. But I also knew that I did not yet have that freedom. After a few more miles, I guided the car back in the direction of the café where we’d dropped off Ahmed. I drove neither fast nor slow, but I could feel myself looking at the familiar streets and buildings that I had never seen from a vantage point other than the passenger seat. I couldn’t help glancing in the direction of the police station as we passed, wondering if any policemen would catch a glimpse of me.
It was the same police station where two days later I would be arrested and detained.
12
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In the Kingdom of Saudi Men
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