What about women’s freedoms?

The Arab Spring has brought the whiff of freedom throughout the Arab world but throughout much of the region women are still being imprisoned by tradition and culture—and, let’s be frank, men’s fears, ego or mistrust.

This state of affairs was highlighted by a number of Saudi women who gained the sympathy of women around the world by getting behind the driving wheel of their cars.

They broke the law but in the 21st century, when women drive in every other country on our planet and in some countries children as young as 16, isn’t it about time that law prohibiting Saudi women from driving was scrutinized and revised?

I can’t imagine what it must be like for a mother in rural areas whose baby is suddenly ill to be prevented from instantly taking the infant to a hospital because her husband is at work and the family can’t afford to employ a driver. The main argument of those against seems to hang upon a ban on gender mixing but when the Kingdom has opened a mixed university and men and women are free to walk around malls that doesn’t hold water. Besides, a woman taking her kids to school in her own vehicle or driving herself to her place of work has nothing to do with “gender-mixing.”

To take a more cynical approach, I can only believe that those men who support retaining the status quo are mistrustful of their wives and daughters, worried that should they be allowed to drive, they might engage in secret trysts. That attitude is not only insulting to womanhood because it means that females are perceived as weak creatures without moral backbone, it is indicative that some men lack confidence in themselves. Without mutual trust, marriage is a sham and if a butterfly is squeezed in the palm of a hand, it will die.

Of course, most of those men advocating the curtailing of women’s right to drive, participate in sports and to work would deny that they are driven by jealously and possessiveness and, instead, try to cloak their “moral” diatribes with religion. If that’s the case, then why are devout Muslim women driving and working, to a lesser or great extent, in every other Islamic country? Are they flouting religious precepts?

I came across a horrible example of a man who put his own ego before the health of his wife years ago in Algeria. A couple turned up at the door of the hotel where I was staying in Annaba to ask if someone could drive them to the hospital some distance away as the completely veiled wife was seriously ill. A European engineer listened to their plight and offered to take them. They sat in the back but not before the husband had turned the mirror around so that the foreigner couldn’t look at his wife, whose face was covered anyway. When they arrived at the emergency room and found there was no woman doctor on duty, the man refused treatment and asked to be driven home.

I don’t mean to imply that most Algerian men are so inclined by any means, even staunch traditionalists. I will never forget the kindness of a village man who came to my aid when I was a passenger in a car accident while driving through the Sahara. He took me and my male driver into his home to tend to our superficial wounds where we met his wife who had just given birth the day before and although she had never been out of the house except the day of her wedding when she moved into the marital home—and had never been in the company of any man other than the males in her family—her husband willingly gave us hospitality and arranged for our car to be towed to the city.

Just a few weeks ago, I went with my husband to an Italian-style café in Alexandria, Egypt, where we currently live, where we bumped in to one of our casual friends called Abdullah. He’s young, educated, single, fairly wealthy and hip; he is usually found in the company of young women and isn’t particularly religious. Yet, he surprised us by announcing that he would never consider marrying a girl if he knew that any man outside her family had ever seen her with her hair uncovered. I asked him whether this was a question of faith and he happily told me, “No, I don’t need a wife who is soiled goods.” The modern-minded young lady who was with him, a pharmacist, didn’t blink an eyelid at that comment.

It must be said that part of the problem lies with Arab women themselves. I can’t tell you how many young single women in their 20s I’ve met in Egypt, who despite being bright university graduates, their only ambition in life is to find a husband. They will tell you that they’ve no intention of ever working and when some of them are asked why they bothered with higher education in that case, they say it improves their marriage prospects. I’ve also worked with young women in the past who lead a Western lifestyle until they notice the ticking clock when they suddenly don the hijab before expressing an interest in landing a spouse.

Not long ago, we had dinner in a restaurant with a judge and his charming, intelligent wife who complained to me that she was lonely, saying it’s rare that her husband ever takes her out or stays home with the family. “He always comes home late and when I ask him to spend a little time with me so we can talk, he tells me he’s tired and goes to bed,” she whispered. I asked my husband, who is the judge’s close friend to tackle him about this, which he did.

The man was effusive about his wife being a perfect woman and a good mother but said her conversation bored him as it was focused on domesticity and the kids. What else can she talk about if that’s the sum total of her world? She wants to work in her husband’s court as a clerk now her children have grown as she feels that would open her mind, but he has refused her request without any explanation. This kind of thinking may in part explain why divorce rates in Egypt are unusually high and coffee shops are crowded with middle-aged men smoking shisha and playing dominoes each evening.

Until men see women as different but equal with rights of self-expression and the need to use their intellect to contribute to the society in which they live, and understand that marriage isn’t ownership but partnership, then the Arab Spring should be clearly labeled “For Men Only.”

Linda S. Heard is a British specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She welcomes feedback and can be contacted by email at heardonthegrapevines@yahoo.co.uk.