How Uber Is Changing Life For Women In Saudi Arabia

An anonymous reader writes: Being unable to legally drive is hard for many women in Saudi Arabia, especially working women. With notoriously poor mass transit options, and the stigma attached to women riding the bus alone, Uber has changed the life of many Saudi women by giving them greater mobility and independence. While there are no official statistics on how many women use the service, anecdotal evidence suggest that 70% to 90% of Saudi riders are women. "A lot of them, I would say, are young women," says Saudi Arabia general manager Majed Abukhater. "We have some data to show that these women are starting to rely on Uber a lot more for their daily commutes; the proportion of trips that we see in Saudi during the weekday is actually very high relative to other locations. That's just kind of one indicator to tell us that women are really starting to rely on Uber for their daily commutes to work, or to school, or to university."

Comments

Uber is not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Eradicating blatant sexism is.

Re:Uber is not the answer

[sims 2]

Yeah but I am sure the next step will be to ban uber in Saudi Arabia.

Re:Uber is not the answer

[Zeio]

Agree here. Why is the headline stated like this ~ Uber makes things great for Saudi women. It should be ~ Women suffering under Islamic misogyny codified into a Islamofascist totalitarian state find respite and have a slight increase in quality of life with Uber.

Nobody calls a spade a spade anymore.

Re:Uber is not the answer

[Anonymous Coward]

And amazingly, the rest of the world managed to solve this problem too, WITHOUT such insane gender-based discrimination. Give me a break.

Uber is "ride sharing" ?

[jbengt]

From TFA: "for regulatory reasons, Uber in Saudi Arabia does not work with contracted drivers using their own cars—all Uber rides go through existing companies"

So Uber can follow local laws when they're forced to. Who would've guessed?

Uber can't change the chaperoe/mahram law.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The shari-ah holds that women are not allowed to travel alone without a proper male relative acting as chaperone. It is known as maharam or honor law. Women caught in Saudi Arabia without a proper male relative in the company of an unrelated male can be prosecuted. Since all uber drivers are male, (women can't drive in Saudi Arabia) and likely to be unrelated, unless these women have a constant supply of "proper" male relatives, they would not have freedom of movement, uber or no uber. I am no islamic scholar, so not very sure of this: The relatives who can act as chaperones are husbands, brothers, fathers, sons. Not very sure who among the in-laws are allowed to be chaperones as per mahram.