Saudi women are finally standing up against the repression they face in their society. And their public stand is more personal than driving: lingerie.
[They call it Victoria’s Secret for a reason. ABC News.]
Saudi women are feed up with having to deal with men instead of women in the nation’s lingerie stores. It is incredible ironic in this nation where a misogynistic and obscurantist clergy enforces strict segregation of the sexes. Unrelated Saudi men and women are prohibited from intermixing in private or public for that matter. At a recent Riyadh book fair, three Saudi males youths were kicked out by the fanatical, religious police after they sought to have their books signed by the female novelist. A young Saudi girl was sentenced to jail and lashed - the nation still lashes! - for her own rape on the grounds that she was at fault for being in the company of unrelated male at the time. She was subsequently pardoned after international outcry. She was fortunate, that isn’t the case for most Saudi women. Alas, an elderly woman hasn’t been able to attract enough international attention to save her self from brutal punishment. Recently, a 75-year old women was sentenced to months in jail and 40 lashes [!] all for being along with two young men. The men were not their for foul play - I know, a shocker. One of the men is her nephew and he came with his friend to deliver bread to his widowed aunt. And, yet, in this extremist nation that simply act is a perversion and cause for Ayatollah justice.
It is in this context that the lingerie story is so outstanding. It seems that if a nation is going to exist on sex-segregation so much the lingerie store, where women buy intimate appeal, would be at the top of the list. But, alas, in Saudi Arabia the men run the shops. And the women are naturally tried of browsing lingerie in front of men and the presence of men prohibits dressing rooms. So Saudi women have finally taken a stand. First, lingerie stores. Second, driving cars?
Let’s hope that this is the beginning of the emancipation of Saudi women.
Little girls might be made of sugar and spice and everything nice, but women are made of powder and paint and things that ain’t!