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“She said that in the past she often bought the wrong underwear “because I was sensitive about explaining what I wanted to a man.” A royal decree issued by King Abdullah in June last year over the objections of top clerics gave lingerie shop owners six months to get rid of their male employees and staff their stores with women only. The ban on male staff is to be extended to cosmetics shops from July. “This is an order from the king,” Labour Minister Adel Faqih said. “All preparations are under way to fully implement this decision,” he said, adding that more than 7,300 retail outlets would be affected by the ban on male staff, creating job opportunities for more than 40,000 Saudi women. The labour ministry’s original proposal to allow women to work in lingerie stores sparked a storm of protest from the kingdom’s top clerics three years ago. They issued a fatwa, or religious decree, barring women from any such work………..”

With such ponderous weighty life-or-death national issues at stake, no wonder there is no time for such sully frivolous things like elections, eradicating corruption, and reform. Apparently the princes believe in reform from the bottom up (pun intended) and the real test will be if they allow ladies to sell the shmagh alongside Victoria’s Secret stuff. That would be a threshold. (Shmagh is the red and white Saudi head ghutra as opposed to the pure white that most true Gulfies wear or the many-colored that some Iraqis wear) . The motto ought to be: today the liberation of the lingerie, tomorrow the liberation of the shamgh. Would the regulation royal goatee (aka saksooka) come next?
Cheers
mhg


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