On 24 June, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia finally lifted its ban on women driving, 28 years after protest against the ban first started. Around the world, on social media, and in the Kingdom, women celebrated the historic reform which is widely seen as an unprecedented step towards better women’s rights in the ultra-conservative regime. For instance, through a collaboration of Berklee College of Music and PRI’s The World (an American public radio magazine), Palestinian cellist Nassem Alatrash and Syrian singer Nano Raies reworked the Lennon/McCartney classic, “Drive My Car”, Arabising it lyrically and musically into an anthem for the “watershed” moment. Many women in Saudi Arabia have also posted videos of themselves on social media to mark their new driving rights. In June this year, Saudi singer Leesa A released a rap video titled “We are Driving” on YouTube, offering safety tips to drivers and highlighting the importance of putting on the seatbelt. The video went viral and has garnered more than one million views thus far.

Yet, amidst this jubilation and (social) media hype, we ought not be blind to the crackdown on Saudi women’s rights activists just weeks before the lifting of the ban. Equally, if not more, significant are the existing and deeply entrenched repressive policies against women.

First, since May 15, Saudi authorities have arrested more than a dozen prominent Saudi women activists and their male supporters, and imposed travel bans on others; while some of those detained have been temporarily released, others remain behind bars and could face imprisonment for up to 20 years. The detention, justified on grounds of activists’ alleged suspicious contacts with “ foreign entities”, occurs alongside  systematic crackdown (or, as the regime claims, a “anti-corruption probe”) on professionals and clerics in Saudi Arabia. Second, Saudi women continue to face restrictions that underscore their unequal relations with respect to men: women are still beholden to restrictive male guardianship laws that control almost every facet of their lives, from marriage to divorce, travelling abroad and applying for passports, opening a bank account, employment, to leaving prison and having elective surgery. Saudi Arabia also continues to enforce strict gender segregation in the public sphere –women thus cannot attend sports events or dine at restaurants if no separate “family” sections exist. Consequently, this also means that employers cannot hire women if there are no segregated office spaces for them. In the private sphere, women are stuck at home unless a male guardian or relative is able to escort them outside. Third, there have been no women in charge of government ministries since the inception of the Saudi kingdom in 1932. Women can run and vote in local elections – but the power and authority reside with the throne. Fourth, Saudi embassies have in the past year worked to return female “runaways” back to the country – these are often abused girls who have left the Kingdom without consent. These girls face detention and cannot be released until their guardians have signed their release documents.  Lastly, Saudi women must wear the abayas in public; most also have to cover their hair and face with a black veil.

How do we make sense of this duality in women’s condition in Saudi Arabia – of cosmetic progressive reform on the one hand, and the persistent subjugation of Saudi women and quelling of dissent on the other? The implementation of superficial reforms without substantive, institutional change does not aim to tackle the unequal place that women occupy in the male-dominated regime. If anything, these reforms are tokenistic and do not signify any genuine political will nor intention to improve women’s condition. For example, The 2015 landmark election of more than a dozen female politicians to local councils in different parts of the country might be a positive step towards the inclusion of women and their issues in the political decision-making, but in reality, local councils have limited powers and female politicians constitute less than 1 percent of the elected council members countrywide. While gender parity does not necessarily create substantial gender equality, we cannot expect women’s issues to be introduced, articulated, and filtered through overtly patriarchal channels in the Kingdom.

Saudi’s lifting of the ban on women driving should be seen in the context of Saudi’s broader goal of revamping its international image – from an oppressive, hardline, and “not normal” regime to, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman claims, a country of “moderate Islam”. Granting women the right to drive, ascending to the UN Human Rights Council (which is the outcome of a secret vote-trading deal with the UK, according to leaked diplomatic cables), ending the 35-year ban on cinemas, and conducting the broad sweeping anti-corruption inquiry are all part of a Saudi red herring to distract from the Kingdom’s human rights violations and to portray Crown Prince Salman as a progressive leader who is charting a new path for the regime and rescuing his subjects from the throes of supposed archaic conservatism. Crucially, these superficial reforms confer Salman greater popular support and legitimacy while also neutralising sources of criticism and power struggle.

Meaningful advances in women’s rights, and in the much longer term, gender equality, requires genuine institutional and political reform. While Saudi women relish in their newfound freedom and mobility, they should not forget that civic activism is the key to unlocking greater freedoms. This requires space and individuals to build solidarity and articulate demands, opinions, and criticisms.

*DISCLAIMER: The views in this piece belong solely to the author.