I think that, parents should make their children grow in every aspect. If they make them teach everything, then they are the ones who can take care of themselves and also their parents too!!

Thanks to the girl, who saved her parents with her driving skills. Driving or any other field it might be parents should encourage their children to learn it. EOD its the children who will stay and are the future of this mother Earth.

Its no more history now, where in you are supposed not to learn anything, especially Women, who are also great in handling businesses now a days!!!

Thanks for all the detail! I’ve got it now.

I guess it boils down to the inherent problems of unrelated men and women being alone together. Whether changing tires or making copies, we are all subject to the unwritten rules of the sexes.

That said. The unwritten rules should not prevent the KSA from allowing women the modern convenience of driving.

I should say there are 2 contexts I hadn’t mentioned, one was with strangers getting into the building, some of them looking for solace from the architecture, and some thinking the subject matter made it a place of refuge. And the second was my reputation. Now that I think about it, maybe he did know who I was, especially if he attended the grad student orientation, and had heard one of the favourite stories about me at the time: that I had called campus security on another man on a Saturday in similar circumstances, ie closed building in there alone.

That time, I had walked into the building, expecting and realizing that I was alone, and then noticing that I was alone, except for a large male form sleeping face down on the couch in the waiting area in front of my office door. I walked past him from afar (he was on the opposite wall across a large area), trying to guess if he was one of the street people who maybe got in, or just a drunk guy sleeping it off, or… Couldn’t tell anything except size being more like a man than a woman, and by clothing unlikely a full-time street person. I went into my office, and was going to ignore him and work, with the door on automatic lock as usual, but then I thought, how can I work without going to the copy room (also the fax room, printer room) and more importantly make my tea there? So, I called campus security to come and assess the situation. In other circumstances, ie people around, I would have done it myself, but not alone, and not with emergency medicine scenarios in my brain of what waking a drunk/drugged person can incur. So I persuaded them to come, and told them I would be leaving the building and calling back for an all clear.

I went to a nearby mall, bought a tea, and called back about a half hour later. The bewildered, but polite, security guy told me they woke the sleeping man, and he was one of the female staff’s husband, and he knew me. “Oh perfect”, thought I, “the architect husband of the PhD Administrator/ Graduate student coordinator (ie someone with the power to make my life miserable)”. So I said x’s husband? No, y’s husband, she is here working and now they are both in her office, and he said he won’t sleep on the couch any more. Hmmm, worse, y was an African Canadian, and a Jehovah’s Witness, with all kinds of “let’s make sure sure she doesn’t feel discriminated against for gender, race, and religion” attached to her by the director, because he had been accused of biases before. Plus, I had just called security on a young well, though casually, dressed black man for sleeping on a couch, while his wife worked in a back office. I thanked the security officer, and walked back, and straight into her office, where they were both sitting. I apologized profusely to both, and made it clear I had no idea who the sleeping form was, and why I thought to get security involved, and that my initial thought was the architect (verrrrry Nordic) even after I was told it was a staff member’s husband. They were gracious but somewhat discomfitted as one would expect. Over time they relaxed about me.

The Graduate Director (not the woman coordinator, the prof who was the graduate director) made a big to do about it, especially as I had previously said that in daytime hours I didn’t see the necessity of extra locks. He was sharing the story widely, as was his want, and was making pointed jokes, until I said “You are forgetting how much time I have spent in medical and psychiatric emergency rooms”, which stopped the joking part of it. However, it remained a favourite story among grad students and faculty.

Lucky for the next guy I “caught” looking like he was picking a lock to the side door entrance, his grad student wife was standing beside him. Lucky for me too, as he was a lawyer with a major law firm. I let them in, and we had a laugh about my “reputation”. She apologized for looking like a damsel in distress who had to call her husband to come and try to get her key to work. Needless to say this all happened in very Politically Correct territory–which in fact often creates extra tensions.

Thanks for asking, I hope I clarified things. Sad we are all so discomfitted.

I don’t understand the fear of the new grad student. Did he think he’d be accused of something? Where did this take place? What could really happen in the copy room? Might he have just felt uncomfortable making you uncomfortable, similar to my tire changing story?

Not only is there no “law” that prohibits women driving, but the last update to the traffic laws in the KSA did not mention the gender of the driver. Hence, it can be assumed that it does not matter if male or female were behind the wheel.

Attitudes toward women driving are not codified into law. They only exist in the imagination of men.

I agree that the ”guardian” system should be removed asap.

Daisy, Women ”drove” horses and camels so it is sunnah for women to ”drive’their own means of transport. But KSA is very often at odds with sunnah and the example of the prophet.

Hurray, hurray hurray for the heroic girl! That is one cool amazon!

Sparky, share a photo of your car, numberplate, and the roadblocks you will cause!

“But some scientists are beginning work on stopping the teeth from appearing altogether, so that we might bioengineer these teeth out of existence before evolution does it for us. Because there’s a window of time in which there’s no third molar, it might be possible to administer a laser or a chemical agent that would prevent the tooth growth. Preliminary studies have shown some success in dogs and rats [source: Silvestri, Singh].”

Also mommy made sure my wisdom teeth were surgically removed before they they caused trouble to my other teeth. They were quite compacted. Thank GOd for science and operations. But hey some people’s wisdom teeth are perfect and non troublesome. Yeah

Thank you for your tire changing story. It is really sad that we have to feel this degree of apprehension about situations which should be easy good Samaritan ones. Part of why I drove on the rim and didn’t change the tire myself, was that I was afraid to leave the protection of the car on that road (also recognition that my sister inherited all the family mechanical and strength genes).

In a similar vein, early one academic semester I was working in my office when the building was closed on the weekend. I went to the combination coffee/photocopy room and was turning all relevant machines on when in walked a man I didn’t recognize. We looked at each other with fear barely hidden under civility, and did a quick size up. I decided that friendliness couldn’t hurt, introduced myself as one of the junior faculty, and he quickly said he was one of the new grad students–relief all round (no guarantees on either side but careers hanging in the balance as a deterrent). This also gave us a fast role identity, and we talked about our research, and went to my office so I could give him a bunch of photocopied articles relevant to his. We both new why we were initially afraid of each other, but never acknowledged it. Also, all the male faculty made it a habit when coming in during off hours, to say a loud hello and give me a wave as they walked in so I wouldn’t be frightened. They did this just out of general consideration–very thoughtful, as you have been about the challenge for Saudi women in this regard.