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| Reem Assad in Saudi Arabia leads campaign to ban men from sales positions in women's lingerie stores. We at Islamic Fashion.biz fully support her and our Saudi sisters. | Islamic Fashion.Biz |
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From BBC News
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Saudi Arabia: Saudi Lingerie Trade in a Twist
BBC News, Jeddah
It would be bizarre in any country to find that its lingerie shops are staffed entirely by men.
But in Saudi Arabia -- an ultra-conservative nation where unmarried men and women cannot even be alone in a room together if they are not related -- it is strange in the extreme.
Women, forced to negotiate their most intimate of purchases with male strangers, call the situation appalling and are demanding the system be changed.
"The way that lingerie is being sold in Saudi Arabia is simply not acceptable to any population living anywhere in the modern world," says Reem Asaad, a finance lecturer at Dar al-Hikma Women's College in Jeddah, who is leading a campaign to get women working in lingerie shops rather than men.
"This is a sensitive part of women's bodies," adds Ms Asaad. "You need to have some discussions regarding size, colour and attractive choices and you definitely don't want to get into such a discussion with a stranger, let alone a male stranger. I mean this is something I wouldn't even talk to my friends about."
In theory, it should be easy enough to get women to staff lingerie shops, but parts of Saudi society are still very traditional and don't like the idea of women working - even if it's just to sell lingerie to each other.
Rana Jad is a 20-year-old student at Dar al-Hikma Women's College, and one of Reem Asaad's pupils and campaign supporters.
"Girls don't feel very comfortable when males are selling them lingerie, telling them what size they need, and saying 'I think this is small on you, I think this is large on you'," she says.
"He's totally checking the girls out! It's just not appropriate, especially here in our culture."
Embarrassing experience
Nura, an administrative clerk at the same college, says she never buys lingerie in Saudi Arabia anymore.
"It's really embarrassing. They try to give comments -- 'this might suit you better than that' -- it's really not ethical."
To be fair to the male shop workers, many of them find the experience just as embarrassing as their women customers.
They are torn, says Ms Asaad, between trying to do their job as salespeople and not stepping on any toes by doing something inappropriate, that could land them in hot water.
"Since we do have the option of replacing male salespeople with female salespeople I don't see why this situation should continue."
Because physical contact between unmarried men and women in Saudi Arabia is forbidden under strict segregation laws, women can also not be properly measured for their lingerie.
Worse still, the kingdom's religious police forbid lingerie shops even to have fitting rooms.
So if a customer wants to try an item on, she first has to pay for it, and then traipse to a public toilet to see if it fits.
If it doesn't, she can easily get a refund, but most women find the experience so humiliating they buy items without trying them on, only to get them home and find they don't fit and their money is wasted.
Frustration
Ms Asaad's campaign began on the social networking website Facebook and is gradually getting larger.
Even Saudi Arabia's male-dominated press is starting to take note, with several newspapers reporting on her fight.
The situation is all the more frustrating because the relevant legislation is already in place.
In 2006, the Saudi government passed a law stating that women should be allowed to staff any shops that sell women's items, be it clothing, accessories or lingerie.
But the law still has not been properly implemented.
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