Saudi Arabia is a semi-developed country, although the country possesses many good parts such as the free health care and free education it still lacks some aspects of a developed country. The gender inequality in Saudi Arabia is extreme and it is effecting the country negatively by decreasing progress of this country. Women can obtain education in Saudi Arabia and have access to free Universities where they can choose any major without caring about tuition fee, however, after graduation many women have difficulties finding work because they do not have access to transportation that allows them to commute to their work, after all in Saudi Arabia there is no law the prohibits women from driving but there is no way for them to obtain driving license making it impossible for them to drive legally in Saudi Arabia. This effects the poor more than the rich because a poor family household is to able to hire a personal driver that drives women to their work whereas a rich family can hire one or two personal drivers. Sadly, a very common argument for this issue is that driving is for fun and not a necessity so other issues should be solved first, however, if women cannot go to their work because they lack the means to commute to their work then this issue is having direct effect on the economy of the country. Moreover, this issue is forcing families living in poverty to stay in that financial state by actively trying to make it harder for the women in the family to work, especially with families that consist of mostly or only women. Furthermore, families that consist of only women have a hard time doing many essential things because of the male guardian system where women need a male relative to give them approval for many things such as traveling, opening a bank account, or working. If the husband or father is dead women have to rely on any male relative to have the right to work or open a bank account and that causes many unnecessary problems for families that consist of only women. Solving the pressing matter of gender inequality in Saudi Arabia will help the country progress in a more rapid rate, therefore, the first steps toward that goal should be uplifting the ban on women driving inside of Saudi Arabia and giving women freedom for the guardian system.

The male Guardianship is a system that forces women to have the approval of a relative male to do many things such as marriage, opening a bank account, or even working. The male guardianship system is not something wanted by the majority and it is a system that hurts women from all social classes ranging from the rich to the poor, as it effects every woman who wants to travel, open a bank account, or work. There is a need to end this system for the sake of taking steps away from gender inequality and to help women attain more freedom in their daily lives and have access to work without the approval of someone else. Sadly, if a family consists of only women then they will have to rely on male relative to be able to work, and this could lead to unnecessary trouble because it is not uncommon for the relative to abuse the system to forbid them from work or have a say in where they should work and where they cannot work. If the family is poor, then the guardianship system is a pitfall that could keep them in that financial state without having any means to change the situation to the better because a relative could very easily abuse the system without helping them financially. Therefore, it is only beneficial for the society to end the system for the sake of increasing the number of working women in Saudi Arabia, after all the male guardianship system is directly hurting women chances of work. Furthermore, the male guardianship system is not only hurting women chances of work, but it also gives the guardian rights that can be used to abuse his daughter or wife. For example a father can force his daughter to marry someone she does not want to marry or he can refuse to marry his daughter to anyone for the sake of getting welfare benefits. Unfortunately, under this system women lives are influenced heavily by who is their guardian is, if the father or husband is abusive then their lives are going to be extremely difficult for the rest of their lives and they cannot escape that. Therefore, the male guardianship system is completely flawed and it should be stopped if Saudi Arabia wants to take steps away for gender inequality, and there was 15000 signatures signed for the hashtag #IAmMyOwnGuardian. And the crown prince has said that women are going to be more active in the working force in the future so there is hope that the male guardianship law is going to be abolished. However, the male guardianship system is not the only problem preventing women from working, it is one of the problems in this country and if Saudi Arabia wants to decrease the gender inequality than one more problem should be addressed.

In addition to the male guardianship system there is one more issue that should be debated which is the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia. Driving is a necessity that should be given to women but even in times of emergencies where they need to go to hospitals driving is still prohibited for them even if they have international driving license. Driving for women in not clearly illegal for women because there is no law that prohibits it, but there is no legal way for women to obtain Saudi driving license and even women with international driving license cannot drive inside Saudi Arabia. A woman named Manal Al-Sharif has an international driving license and drove during a protest for women’s right to drive but she was arrested even though there are no clear laws that prohibit women from driving. One argument behind not allowing women to drive come from the paranoia that something could happen to your daughter or wife if they drive alone and they could be assaulted or harassed. Another argument made by both men and women is that driving is a fun activity and it should not be a pressing matter that must be solved now, and that some other issues are more worthy of their attention. However, they must understand that some families consist of mostly women or only women and they cannot afford a driver, and to them they have difficulties finding job because of gender inequality and the guardianship system and if the lack of transportation is put on top of all that they will lose any hope they have for finding a job. The people who argue against allowing women to drive have do not actually need driving whereas people who argue for women driving may need to drive for the sake of going to work and earning money to feed their family. Not all people who argue for women driving do it because they need it but many of them do it because they know that some families are burdened with so many laws that forces them into unemployment. Simply because a family can afford one or two personal drivers does not mean the right to drive is a fun activity and not a pressing issue, because there are so many families that live in poverty without being able to work and they have no access to public transportation so if they cannot drive their chances of finding a job that feeds them diminishes by a large percentage. However, not everyone is ignorant of the problem and many women who do not want to drive because they have a driver still support women’s right to drive because they know there are people who need to drive to have more chances of obtaining work.

Although there has been a progress in the recent years such as giving women the right to vote there is still so much work to be done to help families living in under the poverty line due to laws such as the male guardian ship system and the right to drive in Saudi Arabia. Sadly, Saudi Arabia like many countries inherently prefers to hire men over women and that is an inequality that happens even in the most developed countries, however, in Saudi Arabia’s case the combination of not allowing women to drive and the male guardianship system make women’s chances of finding work by far harder than any other country. This issue is causing the hurting the economy due to rich families wasting money on several personal drivers per household and poor families unable to find work. This issue is caused because of culture and not because of the Islam religion, the Saudi Arabian culture is forced this laws in the past and now the country is having a hard time getting changing them. Sadly, many of the people who argue against changing these laws are doing it out of paranoia of what could happen to their daughters and wife while they ignore how necessary changing these laws is for the families living under the poverty line. Furthermore, their arguments are baseless because neighbor countries such as Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates where women can drive freely without any crisis happening every time they go to work or school. Which proves that this issue is a cultural one and has nothing to do with Islam, however, because the top cleric of Saudi Arabia has always condemned this along with the majority of clerics many started arguing for the not letting women drive and for the male guardianship system. Because of the pressure the clerics are putting it is hard to change these laws and some people are swayed by their opinions by mistakenly thinking that their opinion are back by Islamic grounds. And sadly because of this families who are living in poverty are forced to continue to live in those conditions because the top cleric in Saudi Arabia thinks that letting women drive is “a dangerous matter that exposes women to evil”. Sadly, the top cleric in Saudi Arabia is not making any logical argument and his argument does not even bring up any attention to families that consist of only women who cannot afford to have personal driver. Furthermore, according to the top cleric of Saudi Arabia and most of the clerics and Saudi Arabia women can’t be in the same room as a strange man and that is why men and women cannot work together in the work force of public institutes, however, they are forcing women to go to work on a daily basis with a personal driver who is a complete stranger. Unfortunately, the law that prohibits women from driving is setting women from poor families to unemployment where it does not affect women from rich families. Of course, that is not to say women from rich families are accepting the situation and lack any empathy towards women who need the right to drive, many women from all social classes are fighting for their right to drive.

In conclusion, for Saudi Arabia to progress women must have more rights and they must become a larger part of the working force, and for that to happen they have to gain some basic rights first. The male guardianship system prevents women from performing many basic tasks without the permission of their male guardian and if the guardian is abusive then he can take advantage of this law and easily abuse it. A relative can prevent a family consisting of only women to not have any kind of job because he disapproves of women working or it could be a father abusing this system to force his daughter to marry a man she does not want to marry or instead force her not to warry for the sake of getting welfare checks. This system is inherently flawed because it can allow any guardian to abuse it and force the woman to live miserably if the male guardian has an abusive nature, therefore, this system must be abolished for the sake of taking steps towards equality in gender. Furthermore, women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia which causes them a lot of trouble and sometimes erases any chance they have of getting work because there is no public transportation in Saudi Arabia so a car is the only way for a woman to commute to work. In addition to not being able to work the male guardianship system combined with not being able to work makes it almost impossible for families consisting of only women to find work, because even if the woman can find work how can they go to the work without public transportation and the right to drive. Furthermore, the clerics putting pressure against allowing women to drive but at the same time they are forcing them on a situation where they have to go to work on a daily basis with a strange man they have to hire, something poor families cannot do. The cleric is contradicting himself and he does not make any argument for what poor families should do if they cannot work due to inability to drive. Many men and women support women’s right to drive because there is no real reason to not allow them to drive when there are so many reasons that could benefit many families if they were given the right to drive. Without the male guardianship system and the ban on women driving Saudi Arabia will decrease the gender inequality and possibly increase the work force with more women being able to work. In the end, many women are fighting for their rights and not all of them are fighting for the same reason, but in the end it is their rights and they should be given those rights.
