grammatical number - Controversy over subject-verb agreement in this sentence


The sentence



Women driving cars is, of course, such a foreign sight to a society like Saudi Arabia



The subject is not "women" (otherwise, the verb would have been 'are'); the subject, as I mean to use it, is the rarity of seeing women driving cars. The subject, in other words, is "women driving cars" as a thing. Does this give me licence to use 'is' here? Thank you.




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