Saudi Women Use Facebook To Ban Men From Working in Lingerie Stores

I am all for egalitarianism and equal opportunity in all aspects of life. There are exceptions to equal access to jobs, however, especially in societies where woman are dehumanized, such as Saudi Arabia. Women should not have to endure the presence of males in clothing store dressing rooms, nor in lingerie or swimwear shops. I find few things creepier than having a male carry hangers of undies while taking me into a dressing room. ICK!

Here is an article about how in Saudi Arabia, where woman possess no civil rights, banned together on Facebook to effect a ban of men from working in lingerie shops. Bravo to these brave women.

Women only to work in Saudi Arabia lingerie shops
By Emily Buchanan BBC world affairs correspondent


A law allowing only women to work in lingerie shops in Saudi Arabia is coming into force.

Campaigners hope this will end decades of awkwardness in the Islamic kingdom where women have always been served by male shop assistants.

The heated issue of the total lack of female shop workers in Saudi Arabia has simmered for years.

Many Saudi women say they have felt particularly uncomfortable buying their lingerie from men.

Female campaigners recently increased the pressure for change through a Facebook campaign and a boycott of lingerie stores.

Now King Abdullah's royal decree finally comes into effect, banning male staff from selling female underwear.

"It's about time, it's been a long struggle and the authorities have finally come to their senses," says Radio Jeddah journalist Samar Fatany.

She says she, and any woman who could afford to, would often shop abroad rather than face the embarrassment of giving her underwear size over the counter to a man.

The campaign has gained extra momentum from the increasing number of young women who want to enter the workplace.

The Saudi women who can work are usually the educated elite who do professional jobs in medicine or government.

The new law could potentially create up to 40,000 jobs for ordinary Saudi women who have hitherto had little or no access to employment.

But it also means that male clerks, most of whom are foreign workers, will be out of a job.

It is not far short of a social revolution being pushed through in the teeth of fierce opposition from the kingdom's top clerics.

They do not want to see an increase in the number of women working outside the home.

The kingdom's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, has warned shop owners that employing women is a "crime and prohibited by Islamic sharia law".

"There is already a growing tension between liberals and the religious conservatives in the country and this issue could provoke opposition from the religious police," says Abeer Mishkhas is a columnist for the Saudi paper Asharq al-Awsat.

The Ministry of Labour will be posting observers in shopping centres to make sure the new shop assistants do not get harassed in their first weeks of work.

The ban on male staff in lingerie departments is due to be extended to cosmetics shops from July.

British Woman Jailed for Adultery in Dubai

A British mother jailed for adultery in Dubai has lost a second appeal and will stay in prison.

Marnie Pearce, 40, hoped to be freed but will have to serve the rest of a three month term. It had been reduced from six months at her first appeal.

She will be deported on her release and fears she will lose custody of her two young children.

Ms Pearce says her ex-husband accused her of adultery to gain custody of their two children, a claim he denies.

In a posting on her campaign website, her supporters said: "It is with great sadness that Team Marnie have to announce that the verdict will remain the same and Marnie will have to serve her time and, for now, be deported.

"We will continue to apply pressure to have the deportation order lifted, and thank everyone for their continued support."

Ms Pearce, who is originally from Bracknell, Berkshire, denies the adultery claims made by her ex-husband, Egyptian national Ihab El-Labban.

They had two children together, aged four and seven.

She first met her former husband in Oman and married him in the Seychelles in September 1999.

They moved to Dubai but the relationship eventually broke down.

In March last year she was arrested and accused of committing adultery with a British man, who she insists was only a friend, and convicted in November.

Neil Durkin, spokesman for Amnesty International, said: "I know the Foreign Office is working on the case but what we can do remains to be seen, it is difficult."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7945543.stm

Published: 2009/03/16 13:36:41 GMT

Beauty Around The World

Oprah did an eye-opening show focusing of concepts of women’s beauty around the world.
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081024_tows_beauty/1

Cultures that were featured included France, Oman, Brazil, Iran, Burma (Kayan), Japan, New Zealand (Maori), Indonesia, Ethiopia, India, and Mauritania. Topics included diets, tatoos, stomach flatteners, lingerie, skin whiteners, hair extenstions, plastic surgery, skin softeners, nose jobs, and over-eating to get fat.

The underlying messages were that:

1. Beauty is in the eye of the beholding culture. In Mauritania, bigger is better and fat is beautiful. Even stretch marks are beautiful. Diets are non-existent and no diet products are available. The downside is that girls are routinely force-fed starchy foods (till they vomit) in order to fatten them up to attract a husband. The high obesity rate there causes lots of medical problems such as heart disease and diabetes. Some women consume black market pills created to increase the appetite of camels and cows. But, the women don’t have the same poor body image issues as women in Europe and the Americas who kill themselves to be thin. Being divorced also heightens a woman’s appeal because it proves she is desired by other men.

Regarding Mauritania’s love of plump women, Oprah sang, there’s a place for us….

2. Women, all over the world are willing to go to great lengths (even risking death) to live up to their culture’s beauty standards. Plastic surgery is becoming increasingly more common all over the world. Who knew that Brazil had the second largest plastic surgery volume; and that even in Muslim Iran, where women are covered from head-to-toe, nose jobs are very common. Nose jobs are so common in Iran (60,000 per year) that wearing a nose job band-aid is a status symbol worn by women years after the actual surgery and by women who have never had the surgery.

A survey conducted by Dove reveals that 90% of women around the world wish to change some aspect of their bodies. Too bad women can't be more like men who are generally comfortable in their bodies.