If only we could successfully marginalize the tiny, tiny minority of Saudi Arabian muslims who oppose giving women the right to drive, we could create a better vehicular situation for women over there!

Alas, we learned from the other thread that this sort of thing is entirely cultural and has nothing to do with the religion, so what are you gonna do, right?

Nothing. Since christian women wouldn't have been able to drive 600 years ago, we're not allowed to say that Saudi Arabia is backwards. Oh well.

It's important to keep in mind how news of this sort breaks here. It may be leaked, but it doesn't "happen," in a true way, until a senior royal family member mentions it in public. It is a monarchy, after all. Saudi women can't drive until I hear it from Abdullah. (Really.)

That said, this much is encouraging: the Saudi royals aren't dumb, even if they're glacial. They could, arguably, adopt a fuck-you-we're-top-of-OPEC attitude, but haven't, and they continue to SLOWLY make concessions. If international news (a place like Broadsheet, in its small way) continues to publicize the most egregious results of the Saudi courts, they will bend. They're bending now.

I do applaud Broadsheet editors for checking feeds coming out of the Arab Gulf; in some ways, it's the last spot of truly unchecked patriarchy. The wealth of the region merely masks it.

Are you questioning our Democracy Spreading Saudi Friends in the War on Terror? They really do need more than 20B in US weaponry to protect themselves, from themselves.

Well, neither the Koran nor Sharia (nor indeed Deuteronomy nor indeed the rest of the Good Book) mention automobiles and their operation, in this one case the connection between barbaric medieval tribal religions and who can and can't drive might be just a little thin...

From the Hadith and what we know of early Islamic history, Mohammed's wives certainly seemed capable of riding their own camels, so by analogy you'd think...

Naw, nevermind, its all that stupid liberal waffling again, you and the mullahs are certainly right and it just isn't What Mohammad Would Do.

It's just that I'm against the reflexive support of other cultures in the name of sensitivity. Don't get all relativistic on me.

I think it's important to understand other cultures. I also think it's important to not ignore the connection between religion and the way women are treated.

if it's true then it's great news, really nothing to bicker about, is there?

Besides that bit about the change being glacial and all...but remember before 1960s girls weren't even going to school, according to the post.

So this is good, but let's remember IF it happens, it's probably partly a response to near-universal Western condemnation, and partly a result of Saudi women organizing and protesting and engaging in thoroughly Western style civil disobedience (which they have been doing, even though the media has all but ignored them).

We should continue to speak up and apply pressure in all the positive ways we can think of. It works!

A tiny minority of the the minority of Saudis who are citizens who are women who are middle class are now allowed to get behind the wheel w/o getting caned.

We love the Saudis and all their fucking progress. This is awesome. This is truly what being a liberal is all about.

Who cares? What progress for SA! At the rate they're going they aught to be about as democratic as the former USSR by the time the sun goes super nova. If there is such a thing as god he certainly has a warped sense of humor giving one of the most backward, xenophobic groups billions of barrels of oil. The problem lies in the fact that with all that money the draconian dogma that constitutes religion in SA can be exported in large measure to a world that needs it less than Ebola!

I wonder if all that fancy military hardware will work when it is fed the coordinates of downtown Israel?