"Saudi women, start your engines!"

I admit I was motivated to write this post by the above heading. I couldn't resist it, so I plagiarized it. Apparently it first appeared as a Twitter message on the main site women2Drive. As flippant as it sounds, it sends a serious message.

It reminds us that in this modern world of ours we still have a nation where women have to beg men just to drive a damn car. Where they must obtain permission from men to take a job or travel. A nation where religion remains supreme in all its misogynistic glory.

And it reminds us this sorry excuse for a nation is a good friend of the West, recently the beneficiary of a massive arms deal with the Americans, the largest in U.S. history.

But Saudi women are protesting. Nothing big like Tunisia or Egypt, just a few gutsy ladies getting behind the wheel and heading downtown—a mini-revolt you might say. But you never know. Small acts of defiance can lead to revolutionary change. Rosa Parks did it by sitting at the front of the bus. Saudi women may do it by sitting in the driver's seat of a car.