{"id":2974,"date":"2011-01-24T09:13:01","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T05:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=2974"},"modified":"2011-01-24T09:13:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T05:13:01","slug":"lifes-complicated-women-and-the-saudi-undergarment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/middle-east-life\/lifes-complicated-women-and-the-saudi-undergarment\/","title":{"rendered":"Life’s Complicated: Women and the Saudi Undergarment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Arab News<\/em> runs a piece noting that both men and women prefer to have women selling lingerie, but somehow the stars don\u2019t correctly align to permit it.\u00a0 Salesmen feel \u2018awkward\u2019 to be selling intimate apparel to women; women don\u2019t want to discuss their bodies in front of strange men. The natural conclusion to reach is that women should be the ones selling lingerie to women, but things aren\u2019t that simple. It\u2019s Saudi Arabia, we\u2019re talking about, so what, really, is<\/em> simple?<\/p>\n

The Saudi societal aversion to having men and women in the same place is the real problem. Government regulation to keep men and women separate leads to additional expenses that make hiring women unprofitable. Unlike other shops, a female-staffed lingerie shop would require blacking out of windows, hiring guards for the doors, and numerous other add-ons. No business owner willingly accepts rules that turn a potential profit into an assured loss.<\/p>\n

Women alone should work in lingerie shops<\/a>
\nARAB NEWS<\/p>\n

DAMMAM: Most young Saudi women are hesitant to work at women-only clothes shops at a time when many of their counterparts can be seen in security staff and supervisor uniforms at commercial complexes where men are also allowed to shop.<\/p>\n

Most lingerie shops are staffed by men, largely foreigners. Even after some women activists launched a campaign to boycott such shops a few months ago, only a small number of Saudi women came forward to work as sales staff at these outlets.<\/p>\n

There are young Saudi women working as security staff and supervisors at almost all the commercial complexes opened in the recent past. Wearing uniforms, they watch the shoppers coming in and going out of showrooms and sell not only women\u2019s garments but also that of men and children.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CROSSROADS ARABIA: Salesmen feel \u2018awkward\u2019 to be selling intimate apparel to women; women don\u2019t want to discuss their bodies in front of strange men. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":2975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[18275,177],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}