‘Just’ women drivers: or women as drivers of change?

The stereotype of the 'bad' woman driver is ubiquitous. She is the woman who crushes the car bonnet or scrapes a wing as she attempts to enter the garage, is incapable of extricating herself from a tight parking spot without crashing against the boot of the car ahead, or holds up the traffic by driving slowly in the fast lane. Despite the persistence of the stereotype, research shows the picture is false, with women no more likely than men to engage in this much-touted conduct. Women drivers have fewer accidents, and where women at the wheel of cars bear major responsibility, the accidents are far less likely to be of the magnitude of any male-driver generated car crash.

This false picture of the woman driver not only has traction as a staple for the stand-up comedian and jokes around the water-cooler but women and driving have industrial and political implications.

Saudi Arabian women, because of conservative readings of Sharia law, are denied the right to drive – whether it be bicycles, motor bikes, or motor cars. While police as far apart in geography as France and Aotearoa/New Zealand lament the difficulty (as they see it) of dealing with women drivers who persist in wearing the chador, burqah or niqab, Saudi police occupy themselves with determining not what the woman is wearing at the wheel, but whether she is at the wheel at all.

Some years ago, a group of Saudi women defied the ban, driving in convoy down the main highway into Riyadh. This year the first week of June saw Saudi women launch a Change.org petition demanding the dropping of charges against Manal al-Sharif: she was arrested for driving her car in public in protest against the ban on women motorists. With thousands of signatures from around the world, the petition succeeded in gaining Manal al-Sharif's release, the charges being annulled.

Next came a petition calling on Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, to publicly support Saudi women's right to be on the road and in the driver's seat. More than twenty-thousand signatories had an impact. At a press conference, Secretary of State Clinton affirmed: 'What these women are doing is brave, and what they are seeking is right.'

This week, Saudi women have launched further online campaigns, one in the name of Oprah Winfrey, asking for cars to beep their horns in support of Saudi women drivers, another calling on car manufacturing company Subaru to take a principled stand by withdrawing all its operations from Saudi Arabia until the right of women to drive is acknowledged in Saudi law and practice.

Saudi women have reason to believe that their campaigns will result in success, for the battle has its precursors in successful struggles by women the world over.

In Melbourne, women were refused the right to drive trams. The Tramways Board encouraged women applicants, but the union stood in the way, aiming to retain tram-driving for men only. Women campaigned from 1956 through into the mid-1970s, when Joyce Barry became the first woman tram-driver. In Sydney, women fought for the right to become bus-drivers. With unionist June De Lorenzo as principal advocate, this campaign ran through the 1960s and into the 1970s. At the turn of the decade, the first woman drivers took the wheel. Ten conductors ('conductresses' as they were then known), transferred from their previously held jobs, to become drivers, with June Lusk the first to drive rather than collect fares.

The fight for women to be able to become commercial airline pilots occurred again in Melbourne. Deborah Lawrie Wardley held premier qualifications, having flown privately since the age of 14 and totting up more than the required number of flying hours. Her grades were exemplary, and she passed all tests with no score under 90 percent and most in the high 90s. Her psychology tests undertaken by Chandler & McCleod were paid for by Ansett – who paid for psychological testing for all 'top' applicants. She scored in the highest group.

It was her performance in the test that ironically proved decisive in her case. Despite her outstanding performance rather than receiving a 'yes, please join us' letter from Ansett, she received a 'don't call us, and we won't call you' letter. Fortunately someone in Chandler & Macleod had previously congratulated Deborah Wardley's mother on her daughter's success. As the message contradicted the Ansett missive, the strength of Deborah Wardley's case against the airline company was clear.

This, the first claim to go to the Equal Opportunity Board under the newly passed Equal Opportunity Act 1977 (Victoria), resulted in a landmark win. Ansett was ordered to take on Deborah Wardley and she flew Ansett planes for years without incident. It was only with the Pilots' Strike under the Hawke Government that she wound up her employment with Ansett, transferring to KLM.

The arguments against women as bus-drivers, tram-drivers and commercial pilots have all been identical. Women were said to lack the 'necessary' strength – albeit strong women applied and, despite the 'strength required' mantra, strength was not necessary.

Alternatively it was claimed 'women would leave to have children', even though many had worked for years collecting fares on buses and trams, with dedication through long hours, shift work, and few days off.

As for pilots, in her interview Deborah Wardley answered the question (unlawfully put to her) by pointing out that she was not about to cut her longed-for piloting career short by taking up instant childbearing – she married only during the period of her application and the case coming before the courts – and her newly-wed husband was a restaurateur who would fulfil any necessary role of child carer in the future, whilst she remained in the skies.

In any event, the evidence showed that the expense of training male commercial pilots was often lost when they took jobs elsewhere, went off on long periods of leave – whether it was trekking through the Andes, trout fishing in foreign streams, changing airlines – or suffering heart attacks or other ailments which were far more statistically likely to hit male pilots.

The great driving question goes further than the roadways and the skies, however, extending into the field of construction and the factory. When women came to explore the paucity of women in supervisory roles in a variety of industries, the problem of the woman driver – or the woman not permitted to drive – is to the fore.

In construction work, those holding crane-driver licences, tip truck licences, front-end loader and excavation equipment licences trod an exclusive path to promotion: supervisory and foreman jobs were predicated upon holding these licences and having worked in driver-jobs, whatever the skills required for promotion. Practice kept women out of these driving jobs, so preventing them from ascending the promotions ladder. In the factory, women denied access to forklift training could not gain forklift driver licences, so were precluded from working in the highest paid factory posts, with promotional possibilities denied them.

Is this relevant to women in the West today, and the struggle by women in the Middle-East for women's rights in education, training, employment and – in Saudi Arabia – to drive cars? Undoubtedly, 'yes'. Change.org reports that the ban on Saudi women drivers 'is a huge impediment for women who are forbidden to drive to work, stores, or even a hospital', whilst 'many women cannot afford male drivers, and those who can are often harassed by them'. Laws and practices standing in the way of women becoming drivers in whatever field are founded both in psychology and pragmatism. The denial of freedom to drive or the right to hold driving licences, whatever the vehicle, privileges male independence and income-earning capacity whilst promoting dependence as 'right' for women.

Freedom – personal and economic – is at the base of women's demands, whether in the West or the East. In the West, many women say they gain a strong sense of independence when they hold their driver's licence for the first time. That sense of independence translates into practical gains, just as the holding of a crane driver's licence, or that of a forklift driver or commercial pilot, has practical consequences in terms of jobs and income. Women drivers are not constrained by the need to ask for a lift, or call for a taxi – to be dependent upon male drivers for transport and long,or even short, distance movement. Women bus-drivers, tram-drivers and pilots earn more than ever they did as conductors or flight attendants.

Bus companies say that women drivers are 'better' than men drivers, and seek exemption from equal opportunity and anti-discrimination legislation in order to advertise exclusively for women trainees. Women are reported to be 'gentler' on the buses, and rather than simply driving on when mechanical failure presents, call in the problem to the depot. This prevents the escalation of damage with consequently higher cost of repair. As for public relations, according to bus companies, women also 'relate better' to passengers.

The Saudi women's campaign to have Subaru withdraw from Saudi Arabian markets is founded upon the principle that Subaru should honour its claim as a 'progressive' brand. Perhaps women in countries where women are not denied the right to drive and where women's freedom of movement is not constrained by the denial to hold a driver's licence should begin a campaign mirroring that of our Saudi sisters. Is it time for women of the West to boycott Subaru?