Economics professor Reem Asaad is calling a second time for a boycott against lingerie shops staffed entirely by men. In a country where women are punished for exposing skin or interacting with unrelated men, purchasing underwear is a large encroachment into daily life.


Saudi Arabia did not allow women to work in retail in order to minimize unrelated male-female contact, but this did little for women seeking new underwear. In 2006, a law allowed women to be employed where women’s items are sold. Still, powerful religious heads and embedded tradition mean men operate most lingerie shops. The businesses that did try to hire women were stopped by the mutaween, the religious police. The government tried to compromise by requiring frosted glass, but businesses found this too expensive.


NPR’s Kelly McEvers reports:


“McEVERS: Which points to a striking reality in Saudi Arabia. In many ways, the government is more progressive than society itself. Officials are willing to say that Islam has many interpretations, not just one, but still the government is reluctant to push too hard.


Mr. ABDUL WAHID AL-HAMEED (Deputy Minister of Labor, Saudi Arabia): When you push things, you go back actually. Sometimes the resistance becomes stronger, and then all the gains that you make, you will lose them and start right from the beginning.”


It is still commonly argued that the woman’s place is her home, and that taking a job is stealing it from a man, especially harmful when, during the boycott last year, the unemployment rate among men was more than 10%.


Clothing stores do not have fitting rooms, as the country does not tolerate a woman’s undressing in a space as public as a mall. Women must confer with male staff about sizes, cuts, and about items as intimate as thongs and laces. Many women complain men are ogling them, while other men agree it is awkward for them, too, and that women should be working their jobs. They are not allowed to measure women, and must eye-ball the numbers.


There are some lingerie shops staffed by women, in ‘Women Sections’ of malls, or isolated areas, but they are the minority. Professor Asaad has organized women across the nation via Facebook, as public protests are illegal. She demands a two week boycott against the shops, maintaining the voting power of currency, “We the consumers are the final decision makers.”


http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/02/saudi-arabia-saudi-women-in-lingerie-boycott.html


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/24/lingerie-sales-in-saudi-a_n_220174.html


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103993071


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8514201.stm


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29884856


http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=14627&size=


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7908866.stm


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3321637.ece


http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/17/saudi.rape.victim/


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1874471.stm