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BY JIAXI LU AND TRACY PFEIFFER
ANCHOR AUSTIN KIM

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Women in Saudi Arabia are fighting for their right--to drive.

What started with a video of the so-called “Rosa Parks of Saudi Arabia”...(Video: YouTube) ...took on a new form Friday as women across the kingdom got behind the wheel.(Video: Al Jazeera)

Official numbers are hard to come by -- though NPR estimates some 50 women participated. CBS lays out the current situation.

CHARLIE D’AGATA, CBS LONDON CORRESPONDENT: “There is no written law for forbidding women from driving in Saudi Arabia. Instead a religious order. That was enough to put one woman in jail and now others are taking that risk to press for their rights.”

Without the ability to drive themselves, Saudi women must rely on taxis, drivers, or family members to get where they need to go.

A reporter for Bloomberg says -- the state of affairs in the Middle East makes this movement particularly exciting.

LARA SETRAKIAN, BLOOOMBERG NEWS: “When you speak to those women who’s getting behind the wheel, they tell me it’s kind of the same phenomenon as the Arab Spring. They feel emboldened by what’s happening around the region, enabled by social media, they are connecting tremendously in ways we have never seen before. …They say they want a clarification from the Saudi monarch. ‘Are you with the conservatives or are you with reform?’”

And it isn’t just women behind the cause -- one man tells Al Jazeera, allowing women to drive just makes sense.

MOHAMMAD YUSUF AL-NASSIR, JEDDAH RESIDENT: “For the employee to go and fetch his children from school or take his wife to the doctor, he has to get permission to leave work. If my wife could drive, I would be relieved the responsibility of performing some of the day-to-day things for such school runs. I would also feel safer knowing my children would be with my wife rather than with a driver.”

So have the women made any progress with government officials? The New York Times’ Lede blog says -- it looks like slow going.

“King Abdullah and other key royals have said in interviews with foreign reporters that they expected Saudi women to drive one day soon, but they have been mute amidst the current debate.”

Finally, a blogger for Forbes says -- while driving may be the focal point right now, these protests mean much more in the long run.

“Saudi women understand that getting behind the wheel of their cars today has to do with gaining their right to vote, travel and work without the written permission of a male guardian, and move around their country without a male chaperone related to them by blood or marriage. Saudi authorities should rightfully be fearful because women in the Kingdom are just getting started.”

Some of the women who got behind the wheel Friday were issued tickets for driving without a license -- but most reports indicate no one was arrested or attacked. 

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