Saturday 7 January 2012

Storm In A 'D' Cup

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

Praying To Mecca or M&S?
Praying To Mecca or M&S?

..... but the King has apparently decided that on this issue he will bow to pressure from women's rights campaigners. So from this week, certain shops will not be allowed to employ men.
 
Of course this being an Islamic paradise on earth, all is not as it seems .... the King has only legislated that male employees be removed from 'lingerie shops', where conservative women were 'embarrassed' by having to give their bra and knicker sizes to male employees. He has also said that the ban is due to be extended to cosmetics shops from July 2012.
 
Even funnier is that in their efforts to stop women working (Shock, Horror!) so that they wouldn't develop any independence, Saudi men were happy for the majority of the male employees in these lingerie departments to be foreign men. These men were not even guaranteed to be Muslim. The decree is expected to cause 40,000 jobs to be lost to these men, but not necessarily create the same number for Saudi women, as its likely that it will be foreign women who take around half of these jobs because Saudi women wont be able to take the jobs (can't drive cars, need male chaperone, need male permission etc etc).

QURAN 4:34 – ‘Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient

However even this small 'victory' for women could be somewhat Pyrrhic, as it reinforces other aspects of the separation between women and men, and even the King is powerless to stop there being opposition from the religious police, and their backers .... one step forward, two steps back?

2 comments:

  1. QURAN 4:34 – ‘Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient ’

    These words should be printed on the doors of the senate and congress, to remind western women what they will lose real soon.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Things not moved much in Arabia .... women's rights probably going backward in that region.

    ReplyDelete

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.