The bicycle freed 19th-century women from their homes and from their dependence on men. I hope that in Saudi Arabia, the car will do the same.
Manal Al-SharifRead
Denying women the right to drive has imposed huge costs on Saudi citizens.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Restricting women's rights can have negative repercussions on society as a whole.
This quote by Manal Al-Sharif highlights how the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia not only affects women but imposes broader societal costs. By denying citizens, particularly women, the freedom to drive, the country faces lost economic productivity, limited mobility, and a perpetuation of gender inequality, which ultimately harms all citizens regardless of gender.
Themes
WomenRightsDrivingSocietyEqualityFreedom
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for women's rights, one could use this quote to emphasize the social implications of gender discrimination.
More from Manal Al-Sharif
All quotes βIn Saudi Arabia, they always tell us we are queens. We are pistachios. You know the nut? Like something that is protected. So even if you have a very good education, restraints are put on women.
Manal Al-SharifRead
In May 2011, I drove a car in the city of Khobar, Saudi Arabia, to protest the kingdom's ban on women driving.
Manal Al-SharifRead
I love my sons, I love my husband, and I love my country. But in kingdoms of men, there are few - if any - choices for women. Or the choices are such that there is no greater pain than having to choose.
Manal Al-SharifRead
Women's rights are nothing but a part of the bigger picture, which is human rights. Women are trusted with the lives of their kids, even serve as teachers and doctors, but they aren't trusted with their own lives.
Manal Al-SharifRead
In the Saudi system, women are considered inferior. No matter our age, we have male guardians. We must get permission from men to attend school, to work, to marry, to travel overseas - even to have basic medical procedures.
Manal Al-SharifRead
Similar quotes
The world as we know it is falling apart at the seams, because it's an inadequate container for the truth of who we are.
Marianne WilliamsonRead
Dreams have consequences. There is no turning back. A revolution is not a painless march to the gates of freedom and justice. It is a struggle between rage and hope, between the temptation to destroy and the desire to build. Its temperament is desperate. It is a tormented response to the past, to all that has happened, the recalled and unrecalled injustices - for the memory of a revolution reaches much further back than the memory of its protagonists.
Hisham MatarRead
All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.
Mitch AlbomRead
Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward.
Martha GrahamRead
We're not short of movements proclaiming that a different world is possible, but unless we can coordinate them into an international movement, capitalism just laughs at all these little organisations.
Jose SaramagoRead
Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously assert that women ought to be subjected because she has always been so.... It is time to effect a revolution in female manners - time to restore to them their lost dignity.... It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.
Mary WollstonecraftRead