The modernization that Saudi Arabia has seen in the last two decades has brought drastic changes in the Saudi society. Saudi woman as an important layer of the Saudi society manifested these changes in peculiar and distinct social movement and organization.

 Saudi woman is no longer in chains of so called unique Saudi traditions. Today her relentless efforts have taken her movement to the frontiers where her demands for liberal civil rights became more eminent than any time before. The Saudi woman struggle which has elevated since 1990, emphasized on three important fields, woman rights of driving, her rights of free movement and the legal stands against man's violence against woman.

It might appears that these are trivial problems, but the essence of woman crisis stem from the deep intermingling of these problems with the religious believes of the Saudi society. The Saudi society which is dominated by male, base every of its understandings of the woman issues on the Islamic interpretation even if that interpretation is not substantiated by Islam. Woman in this movement is confronting such type of obstacles in which she has to prove the eligibility of these demands without irritating the conservatives.

In an extensive questioner about the social difficulties of the Saudi woman, Dr. Yousif Makai has reviewed the social obstacles that woman faces in her daily life. This elaborate survey which was presented to the national dialogue forum held in city of Medinah in 2004, revealed astonishing difficulties woman has to encounter daily. Regarding the right of woman in driving automobile, complaints were enormous. For instance, a lady with higher degree in medicine which has married non-Saudi and settled in Bahrain, has to drive to her car to the King Fahad bridge on the Bahrain side and then ride a cab to her work in children hospital. Imagine how difficult to practice this daily, she said. The study has disclosed the difficulties that woman suffer to find a guardian required for her travel or to contact the government agencies. In an astonishing story, a primary school teacher admitted that her brother blackmailed her every time she asked his guardianship. Violence and humiliation of woman by male relatives were recorded overwhelmingly by this study. Unfortunately, most of these practices were excused by the misunderstanding of the Islamic rights of man to subordinates woman. This survey has disclosed increasing incidents of assaults on woman which were reported to the local general hospitals. All these human rights abuses and sex segregation were substantiated by the report of the "Human Rights Watch" an affiliation of the US State Department. Hence, Woman civil rights movement was executed in an environment of extreme social and political suppression. Movement was started in 1990 by demonstration of tens of Saudi woman scholars by driving their cars in Riyadh streets. After a decade of struggle through various methods, fruitful results were accomplished by winning the endorsement and support of wide groups of intellectuals, politician and parliament members to grant woman rights of driving.

Despite the relative success of woman in her demands for right of driving, her other difficulties in gaining more rights remain formidable. For instance, the law of guardianship that restrict woman's movement and law of personal affairs that restrict her role in divorce and keep her defenseless against male violence. To overcome these difficulties, she pursued the strategy of isolating the conservatives from using Islam as an excuse of their oppression. One of the successful approaches that Saudi woman achieved using this strategy was during the national dialogue forum that was gathered under the title of (woman's rights and obligations in relation to the education system) (12-14 June, 2004).Interestingly, the forum was started with extensive media barrage of the conservatives against the woman civil rights activists. Their gesture was to limit the expectations of the woman from utilizing this meeting to influence the legislative for decisive reforms. However, the papers that were presented by several woman's participants emphasized on the false bases or the misleading in the conservatives approaches in employing Islam as an excuse in depriving woman from her rights. Dr. Fawazia Abukhalid presentation emphasized on discrimination between the social customs and Islamic jurisprudence. The other important paper was presented by Dr. Elham Al-Dukahleal which proposed a model for the reforms in the nature of jobs that woman could enroll to. Finally, the paper (The rights and obligations of the woman in society) by Dr. Nabiha Al-Ahdal, elaborated the misleading comprehensions of Islam about the woman's role in social activities. She dismissed the Islamic roots of all the social practices that restrict woman's involvement in social reforms.

Despite the short period of the woman civil rights movement, her fingerprints cannot be erased . The hallmark of her success in her movement is in driving the conservatives from offensive to defensive stands.