Why Do You Need the Right to Drive When You Have a Husband?

MEMRI has posted a transcript of a TV debate in Saudi Arabia on whether women should be allowed to drive in the Kingdom.  Dr. Sleiman Al-'Eid, head of the Islamic Culture department at King Saud University, articulates the reasons why women shouldn’t drive:

"Another consequence of this will be the diminishing of men's guardianship over women. If a women drives, she will have a certain degree of independence, and she will come and go, travel, and so on. This will also lead to an increase in suspicions. When she has her own car, she will go out and return late."

PBS: Saudi Women Driving during the Gulf War

The good doctor reveals the real motivations behind the restriction:  women aren’t allowed to drive due to the fear that Saudi men will have difficulty controlling their women.  This is how deep this pathology is embedded in the Saudi culture psyche—a simple request for a women to drive threatens the very manhood of the Saudi male.

For a psychological explanation, we turn to a dated post by Dr. Sanity that clearly explains this mind set in Shame, The Arab Psyche, and Islam.  She explains the difference between  guilt and shame, and its impact upon an entire culture. She uses a column from David Guttman to illustrate her points about Arab culture regarding their women:

The Arab nations have for the most part lost their slaves and dhimmis, the subject peoples onto whose persons the stigmata of shame could be downloaded. But anyone who has spent time among them knows that Arab males have not lost their psychological need for social and sexual inferiors. In the absence of slaves and captive peoples, Arab women are elected for the special role of the inferior who, by definition, lacks honor. Arab men eradicate shame and bolster their shaky self-esteem by imposing the shameful qualities of the dhimmi, submission and passivity, upon women. Trailing a humbled woman behind them, Arab men can walk the walk of the true macho man.

Read her entire piece.  These explanations are made all the more convincing by Dr. Sleiman Al-‘Eid’s rationale.