Diary: Driving as Freedom

June 17, 2010

Dunster, UK

I had a dream once that my car was destroyed.  I was in my late 20s at the time, and the dream was truly a nightmare.  It felt like I had lost my best friend.

After I studied my dream for a while I realized that the car was much more than a machine.  It was my freedom, it got me places.  It took me away from bad situations, it took me to work, to see my friends, to see my family.

When I was fourteen my mother put me behind the wheel of her big car and told me to drive.  We were on a highway between Houston and Laredo, Texas.  It was terrifying.  When I tell other people that she did this they are aghast.  What was my mother doing!  I remember driving slowly with much concentration.  My mother was in the car with my six year old brother.  She told me that I should learn to drive just in case there was an emergency. 

In the late 1950s she drove herself everyday for six months from a small town into downtown Houston, so that she could take a college course.  It was a 30 mile drive.  It was really something. Other women just didn't do that at the time.  My aunts didn't drive until later.  I had one aunt that never did learn to drive.  And of course my grandmother's didn't drive.

I can thank my Mom for being so gutsy before Feminism came about.  Without her daring I would not have made my scores of trips from Houston to Monterrey Nuevo Leon in the late 1990s.  It was a 10 hour drive and I often made it alone -  I was working on my PhD dissertation research.  Although I do have to admit that she had an anxiety attack if I didn't call her the minute I got to my destination.

The Saudi women that are driving today have my support.  Its time they step out into the world, into freedom...MTHdz

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Saudi women encouraged to drive Friday

From Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN

June 17, 2011 -- Updated 0748 GMT (1548 HKT)

(CNN) -- Saudi women are being encouraged to challenge the status quo and get behind the wheel Friday...
The day is expected to be a test of wills -- and authority -- between police and the campaign, which has been publicized by Facebook, Twitter and other social media. It was not clear late Thursday how many would participate...