“Change is a process—it started with my grandmother’s generation, and it will continue with the next,” said Rozana al-Banawi, who has worked to raise the status of Saudi women in public life. “What matters to me is that I’m part of it now.”
Wojood Saleh, a homemaker in Riyadh, said she was so excited to vote that she forgot to iron her abaya, the flowing black robe that Saudi women wear in public, before running to her local polling center.