Tweet
Uber’s Deal With Saudi Arabia Hasn’t Gone Down Well With Saudi Women
To some the deal dashed any hopes that a ban on women driving might end.
Bloomberg
by Donna Abu-Nasr
6/3/2016
Excerpt:
The deal between the only country in the world that bans female drivers and Silicon Valley’s ride-sharing company Uber Technologies Inc. may be as unusual as it is convenient. What’s sure is that it’s caused outrage among many Saudi women.
They are angry that Uber’s new $3.5 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund not only means the government directly profits from the ban, but also it effectively – in their view – endorses the country’s no-women-behind-the-wheel policy. The investment is part of the ultra-conservative Gulf country’s steps toward making money from things other than oil.
But it raised hackles on social media, where the hashtag سعوديات_يعلن_مقاطعه_اوبر# (Saudi women announce Uber boycott) gained traction, and women posted pictures showing them deleting Uber apps from their phones.
Uber has operated in Riyadh since 2014, and along with another service, Careem, is popular with Saudi women, who have sought the right to drive for more than two decades. They are forced to pay chauffeurs, most of them foreigners, or rely on male members of the family to drive them.
"They’re investing in our pain, in our suffering," Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi women’s historian who teaches at Qatar University, said in an interview from Doha. "This institutionalizes women’s inferiority and dependency, and it turns women into an object of investment."
Saudi women lead restricted lives beyond the right to drive. They need permission from a mahram, or male guardian, to get an education or to travel and for some medical treatments. Though more jobs are now open to them, hundreds of dollars from the money they make go toward paying drivers.
.................................................. ....
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...th-saudi-women
To some the deal dashed any hopes that a ban on women driving might end.
Bloomberg
by Donna Abu-Nasr
6/3/2016
Excerpt:
The deal between the only country in the world that bans female drivers and Silicon Valley’s ride-sharing company Uber Technologies Inc. may be as unusual as it is convenient. What’s sure is that it’s caused outrage among many Saudi women.
They are angry that Uber’s new $3.5 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund not only means the government directly profits from the ban, but also it effectively – in their view – endorses the country’s no-women-behind-the-wheel policy. The investment is part of the ultra-conservative Gulf country’s steps toward making money from things other than oil.
But it raised hackles on social media, where the hashtag سعوديات_يعلن_مقاطعه_اوبر# (Saudi women announce Uber boycott) gained traction, and women posted pictures showing them deleting Uber apps from their phones.
Uber has operated in Riyadh since 2014, and along with another service, Careem, is popular with Saudi women, who have sought the right to drive for more than two decades. They are forced to pay chauffeurs, most of them foreigners, or rely on male members of the family to drive them.
"They’re investing in our pain, in our suffering," Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi women’s historian who teaches at Qatar University, said in an interview from Doha. "This institutionalizes women’s inferiority and dependency, and it turns women into an object of investment."
Saudi women lead restricted lives beyond the right to drive. They need permission from a mahram, or male guardian, to get an education or to travel and for some medical treatments. Though more jobs are now open to them, hundreds of dollars from the money they make go toward paying drivers.
.................................................. ....
View the complete article, including image, at:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...th-saudi-women