Saudi Arabia: Don’t try to control our lives, say Saudi women

Young Saudi women are calling for more freedom and liberty in their own country. On International Women’s Day, university students claim that women in Saudi Arabia need more independence because their daily life is filled with restrictions. “One of our simple rights is to be able to drive to college. I don’t understand why it’s prohibited for us to be in the driving seat,” said 22-year-old Zakeyya Ghulman. “I’m sick and tired of the driver being late and busy with all the work my family is giving him — dropping my mom off at the doctor, picking up my sister from school. I keep waiting for him for hours.”

Under Saudi law, women require their guardians’s permission to leave the country — either by escorting them to the airport and signing an exit waiver or by obtaining single-use or multiple-use permission forms that women keep with their passports.

Having the freedom to choose her future husband is what 25-year-old Amal Al-Ali really wants. “I come from a family that controls young women and does not give them the option to even choose their future,” she said. “Our generation is new and out there, we see and mix with men more than my mother and grandmother did when they were my age,” she said.

As for sports, stadiums are no-go zones for women — something that irks the Kingdom’s many female football fanatics. “This is nonsense,” said 20-year-old Mona Bokhary. “I have a passion for football and it doesn’t make sense that women are not allowed to watch football live and always have to watch it on big screens. I want to attend a football match and hear people cheering for their favorite team and feel the game. What’s the harm in that? Why isn’t it allowed for women to go there? Why not make women’s only sections at local stadiums?”

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