Posted on 05/31/2006 4:06:22 AM PDT by NativeNewYorker
Dubai (dpa) - Saudi women will have to continue to discuss their bra and panty sizes with male shop assistants after a June 1 government deadline for underwear shops across the conservative Muslim kingdom to replace their male sales staff with women was postponed.
Some clerics are continuing to oppose the idea of women holding a job while the government has said it is giving lingerie stores more time to hire female staff.
The deadline for underwear shops to replace their salesmen with female vendors was announced last year in a bid to grant greater job opportunities for women.
It was also meant to eliminate an inconsistency in a kingdom so puritanical that it forces women to cover themselves from head to toe in public, does not allow them to travel unless accompanied by a close male relative, balks at the idea of women getting behind the wheel of a car - and yet forces them to discuss their shape with men.
At present, only a handful of all-female shopping malls in large cities cater to women seeking greater discretion. Men are not allowed to enter these centres and all the sales staff are women.
About 10,000 Saudi women have applied for jobs in lingerie shops, according to reports in Saudi newspapers. Labour Minister Ghazi al-Gosaibi said that shop owners themselves had asked that the deadline be postponed.
``Based on pleas by shop owners ... that they were unable to comply with the deadline, the ministry's decision is postponed until all the preparations are finalized,'' al-Gosaibi said.
The minister has been trying to balance the kingdom's obsession with tradition with growing economic and social pressures to allow more women into the workplace.
His efforts have earned him the ire of Islamic hardliners including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who has termed him a ``heretic.''
More Saudis now seek jobs once considered menial amid a slowdown in growth that has seen the kingdom go from economic powerhouse providing cradle-to-grave benefits for all its citizens to a country still rich in oil but unable to provide jobs and security for all.
Most Saudis are still used to being served by a huge expatriate population of about five million people, many of whom work as maids and waiters, although some have qualified as engineers and doctors.
Lately, the government has been urging Saudis to get educated and snag some job experience on the grounds that the kingdom cannot afford to keep paying expatriates for jobs Saudis could be doing themselves. There have also been calls, rejected by the clergy, to allow women to contribute to the economy by working.
About half of Saudi Arabia's 20 million population is female. Half of the total population is under 25 years of age.
I bet they wear thongs under those Burkas.
One would think that ladies' underwear salesmen would not be mistaken for long haul truck drivers, if you get my drift. So, it's almost like a woman salesperson anyway, eh?
What is that about doing the jobs people won't do for themselves? Let's ship them some illegals!
Women on display, bad. Goats on display, good. What a weird place.
EW.
Holding hands?
Control freaks when it comes to women?
And push-up bras! Only your Master knows for sure.
L
I thought they went stark-naked under their beekeeper suits, except for nipple covers (to avoid being rubbed raw by the burlap).
It sure as hell doesn't show an American President in a position of power.
Wow! Thank God (or the Holy Allah) Saudi Arabia is finally becoming enlightened, kind, compassionate, open and "liberal" in it's dealings with women and their rights. /sar
We need pictures of Saudi women. Are they as good looking as the Lebanese? The Iraqis?
The world wants to know.
"The world wants to know."
I'm not really too sure about that one.
Dont let this story fool you. Saudi women wear combat boots and paper bag drawers, and wear steel belted panty hose.
More bizarre tales from the middle east.
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