Nearly 28000 women have applied for the train driver’s job, and only limited seats were available, only 30 in Saudi Arabia. This is the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia that this kind of post has been advertised in a gender-neutral format in the conservative kingdom.

This follows recent reformatory moves that start with scrapping the ban on women driving and allowing them to travel freely without the shadow of male guardianship in 2018.

Those who pass the test will get a chance to drive high-speed bullet trains between the holy city of Mecca and Medina, but first, they need to take a year of training. Renfe, which is basically a Spanish train company operating the service, also said that they are eager to create opportunities for the women in its local business. They recently have 80 male drivers and is training 50 more.

Saudi Arabia has had one of the world’s lowest female workers, and their women participation rate is also low. Until recently, women in Saudi could work only in charitable roles, like teachers and medical workers. Still, they face a lot of problems like strict gender segregation rules.

However, in the past five years, female participation in the workforce has roughly doubled to 33 percent following a drive-by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to open up the kingdom and diversify the economy. So, this created opportunities for women who are now taking up jobs once restricted to men and migrant workers.

Despite all the efforts or opportunities, the percentile of women working in the kingdom was still about half as compared to men in the third quarter of last year, at 34.1 percent, and female unemployment was more than three times higher than men, at 21.9 per cent, according to a study by the US-based Brookings Institute.

The major reason for this downfall in Saudi Arabia is that women must need to ask permission from their male guardians to get married or access certain kinds of healthcare.

Women have a big disadvantage when it comes to their role in family structures, divorce and custody of children. The men still decide and appear as concessionaires of women’s rights.

Women need to adjust themselves with society like their society is totally against the criteria to accept young men and women working together and meeting in public; women even not properly allowed to wear colorful abayas and studying abroad on their own.