by Manal al-Sharif, 2017
Very informative and educational memoir about her life and her quest to legalize driving for Saudi women. It took 27 years – the first demonstration, not hers, was in 1990, and those women’s lives were ruined forever because they dared to drive.
Manal started her activism in 2011. She ended up arrested for “driving while female.” She ended up in jail for 10 days, a terribly dirty, stinky, cock-roachy place. She was forced to sign statements that she would never drive again. She lost her job eventually because she couldn’t sit quietly while lie after lie was told about her. What I learned was that the Saudi society is violent – husband to wife, fathers to children, mothers to children, and children to children. Manal has 3 scars on her face from when her mother threw sewing scissors at her! Manal and her sister regularly beat each other up. Her father had a cane that he replaced every year and when he couldn’t find that, he beat them with a rubber hose. When she was a little girl, he had her and her sister circumcised by quacks, in their home, without anesthesia. It almost killed Manal because it was such a botched job and wouldn’t stop bleeding. There are rules upon rules upon rules – so oppressive. Women can’t be called by their names in public (too seductive), cannot wear perfume in public, cannot go anywhere without a male guardian. Finally, in June 2017, the Saudi government lifted the ban on women driving, to take effect in June 2018. What a backwards, oppressive, dark place. This is the 2nd title in the 2018-2019 Old Town Library Book Club.