“Saudi Women, Tired of Restraints, Find Ways To Flee.”
The heart of the global war against women is the god problem. Saudi women are not merely leaving the kingdom; they are leaving a theocracy. Even if they don’t phrase it that way, I think they’re rejecting living as slaves to fundamentalist, patriachal religion.
The Times piece begins:
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Whenever her father beat her, or bound her wrists and ankles to punish her for perceived disobedience, the Saudi teenager dreamed of escape, she said.
As desperate as she was to leave, however, the same question always stopped her short: How would she get out?
If she ran away anywhere within the country, the Saudi police would just send her home, she feared. Saudi law barred her from traveling abroad without her father’s permission.
But during a family vacation in Turkey when she was 17, Shahad al-Muhaimeed saw her chance, and bolted. While her family slept, she took a taxi across the border to Georgia and declared herself a refugee, leaving Saudi Arabia behind to start a new life.
“I now live the way I want to,” said Ms. Muhaimeed, 19, by phone from her new home in Sweden. “I live in a good place that has women’s rights.”
Then there’s Orthodox Judaism, with its own vicious way of trapping women.
And more Orthodox Judaism versus women.
Some women who are bravely fighting fundamentalist religions.