Book ReviewVolume 13 Issue # 23

Daring to Drive

A visceral coming-of-age tale from the young woman who dared to stand up to a kingdom of men. Best known for her campaign work for women’s rights, including the Women2Drive campaign, this is Manal al-Sharif’s fiercely intimate memoir. Future generations will marvel at Manal al-Sharif. Her gripping ac-count of homegrown courage will speak to the fighter in all of us. Books like this one can change the world. Manal al-Sharif is following in a long tradition of women activists around the world who have put themselves on the line to expose and challenge discrimi-natory laws and policies. She was born in Mecca the year fundamentalism took hold in Saudi Arabia. As a young girl she would burn her brother’s boy band CDs in the oven because music was haram: forbidden by Islamic law. By her twenties she was a computer security engineer. But as she became older, the unequal way in which women are treated became too much to bear: she was branded a slut for talking to male colleagues at work; her school-age brother had to chaperone her on business trips and, while she kept a car in her garage, she was forbidden from driving down Saudi streets.

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