hxe@rayssd.UUCP (04/12/85)
One of the contracts my company holds is with certain companies
in Saudi Arabia. Recently, I was presented with this 'souvenir'
of Saudi Arabia from one of our employees who travels there con-
stantly. It is a letter from one of the Saudi employees to his
superiors. This is not a joke! (I left the grammar - obviously
that of someone to whom English is a second language - "as is"
but I corrected the spelling errors.)
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IMMODEST DRESS AND MINGLING
AMONG ARAMCO PERSONNEL
For some mysterious reason, women represent a substantial percen-
tage of ARAMCO's labor force. This causes unavoidable mingling
of immodestly dressed females with men poses a powerful source of
temptation and immorality for the young Muslim working man who
face hard choices. Some suffer patiently and hope that things
will improve in the future; others succumb to evil and are lost.
Still others prefer the safety of fleeing from the scene of trou-
ble, and quit work at ARAMCO or just refuse to work for the com-
pany in the first place as soon as they learn about the pitfalls
of working in a mixed environment reeking with temptation and
sin.
Is it not high time to change the situation? We now have a good
number of Saudi young employees in high technical and managerial
positions. Our biggest problem is the mingling of sexes. Women
work as secretaries, file room attendants, custodians of maps,
storerooms and mail centers, even teachers at ITC (Industrial
Training Centers) where they are shamelessly assigned to teach
Saudi teenage employees. How can seventeen-to-twenty year old
Saudi men face the tribulations concomitant with such a delicate
stage of their growth?
I raise my cry in the name of all my fellow employees in ARAMCO.
We demand that women be banned from work among men. We demand
the removal of all exposure and mingling in any form. I do not
think this is difficult to enforce in a Muslim country like ours,
which we pray God to preserve.
We trust God and the responsible officials to take necessary
action to fight this root of evil, and destroy it, with the will
of God who stands behind all good deeds and intentions.
Muhammad Sa'id al-Ghandi
ARAMCO-Abqaiq
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By the way, the "immodestly dressed" women are covered from head
to toe; they only lack veils over their faces to make them "mod-
est."
Also, this letter was written February 11, 1985, so it wasn't dug
out of some some 1940's archive or anything!
--
--Heather Emanuel {allegra, decvax!brunix, linus, ccice5} rayssd!hxe
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I don't think my company *has* an opinion, so the ones in this
article are obviously my own.
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"Ain't life a brook...
Sometimes I feel just like a polished stone" -Ferronmolefeuvre@watarts.UUCP (Michael O LeFeuvre) (04/17/85)
An interesting article, but I think it would have been more courteous
not to include the person's name. Or should I say 'less discourteous.'
Publishing other people's private correspodence should not be done
lightly.
Carlo @ the U of Waterloodebray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray) (04/20/85)
Different cultures have different notions of what constitutes "immodestly
dressed". There are tribes in New Guinea whose women don't cover their
breasts at all ... would that be considered acceptable in this country? I
don't see why _your_ standards of acceptable dress should be "obviously the
right one" for all cultures!
--
Saumya Debray
SUNY at Stony Brook
uucp: {allegra, hocsd, philabs, ogcvax} !sbcs!debray
arpa: debray%suny-sb.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
CSNet: debray@sbcs.csnetchabot@miles.DEC (Bits is Bits) (04/23/85)
It always seemed to me in cases like this that it's not the women who need to be banned, but instead the men who can't control themselves... But, of course, we know from the deathless words of former LA police chief Ed Davis, that it's women in the workplace that cause all the "evils" of today's society, such as crime, homosexuality, and adultery: kiddies see that by mommy working, fooling around outside of marriage is okay, and therefore there is no moral code and robbing is okay too. (The jump from working to adultery and the further connection to homosexuality (and why it's bad) is left as an exercise for the reader. Try ingesting large amounts of peyote and tequila?) Ho ho ho. "Only the mockingbird sings at the edge of the woods." L S Chabot ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot chabot%amber.DEC@decwrl.ARPA DEC, LMO4/H4, 150 Locke Drive, Marlborough, MA 01752
desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins) (04/24/85)
> Different cultures have different notions of what constitutes "immodestly > dressed". There are tribes in New Guinea whose women don't cover their > breasts at all ... would that be considered acceptable in this country? I > don't see why _your_ standards of acceptable dress should be "obviously the > right one" for all cultures! > -- > Saumya Debray > SUNY at Stony Brook > I think the problem is not the definition of "immodest dressing" but the blaming of the women for the "raging male hormones". (Again, the "but she asked for it" philosophy.) We should send all those women home because the men can't control themselves? Why not send the men home? marie desjardins
desjardins@h-sc1.UUCP (marie desjardins) (04/24/85)
[Lisa Chabot:] > It always seemed to me in cases like this that it's not the women who need to > be banned, but instead the men who can't control themselves... > > But, of course, we know from the deathless words of former LA police chief > Ed Davis, that it's women in the workplace that cause all the "evils" of today's > society, such as crime, homosexuality, and adultery: kiddies see that by mommy > working, fooling around outside of marriage is okay, and therefore there is no > moral code and robbing is okay too. (The jump from working to adultery and > the further connection to homosexuality (and why it's bad) is left as an > exercise for the reader. Try ingesting large amounts of peyote and tequila?) Does anyone know if an organization called SEAM (Society for the Emancipation of the American Male) still exists? I found a book written by a Mr. Samra (one of the co-founders of this organization) in 1971 called (get this) "The Feminine Mistake" that blamed all the world's problems on the fact that women were going out to work and asserting their independence and self-worth (as he put it, (incorrectly) rejecting their "tender, loving feminine roles"). These problems include all those mentioned above, PLUS such tidbits as desertion (of women by their husbands!), rape and mastur- bation. Don't all you working women feel GUILTY? marie desjardins
carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN) (04/26/85)
A couple years ago, I ran across a Christian pamphlet that said among other things that women exposing their *knees* was what incited men to rape.... P.
djz@cmu-cs-spice.ARPA (Daniel Zigmond) (04/27/85)
In reply to Saumya Debtay's message: It didn't seem at all to me the point of the original article about this subject was "Boy are those Saudi Arabians dumb because they don't think women should wear certain types of clothes." That clearly would have been inappropriate. I interpreted the article to simply be pointing out that this particular person seemed to think that immdoestly dressed women were corrupting the minds of the (male) youth. Obviously, this is nonsense. I wouldn't want women to work without shirts, but I don't think men should either. Either way, the only way I feel the youth could be corrupted is by trying to imitate the elders they see dressed this way. I don't think it would be psychologically damaging as the letter implied. Even if the male youths were "aroused" that only means that they need to be taught a little self control. There is no (significant) difference between Saudi Arabian youths and the youths of African tribes where women go around topless. Why can't the Saudi Arabian boys handle it? I may not want women to go to work without shirts, but when I look through a National Geographic essay on Africa, I am quite able to control myself. Dan Zigmond
edhall@randvax.UUCP (Ed Hall) (04/27/85)
[Lisa Chabot:] > It always seemed to me in cases like this that it's not the women who need to > be banned, but instead the men who can't control themselves... > > But, of course, we know from the deathless words of former LA police chief > Ed Davis, that it's women in the workplace that cause all the "evils" of today's > society, such as crime, homosexuality, and adultery: kiddies see that by mommy > working, fooling around outside of marriage is okay, and therefore there is no > moral code and robbing is okay too. (The jump from working to adultery and > the further connection to homosexuality (and why it's bad) is left as an > exercise for the reader. Try ingesting large amounts of peyote and tequila?) Just to confuse the issue a bit, California State Senator Ed Davis (yes, the retired LA police chief) has recently antagonized his conservative supporters by strongly supporting a bill outlawing discrimination against homosexuals, even to the point of proclaiming his support for gay rights in the LA Times. Just goes to show you that we don't live entirely in a black-and-white Universe! -Ed Hall decvax!randvax!edhall
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (04/28/85)
> These problems include all those mentioned above, PLUS > such tidbits as desertion (of women by their husbands!), rape and mastur- > bation. Don't all you working women feel GUILTY? > Masturbation is a problem??? Who was it talking about making men feel threatened? Just me again, Jeff Winslow
muffy@lll-crg.ARPA (Muffy Barkocy) (04/28/85)
In article <908@homxa.UUCP> carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN) writes: >A couple years ago, I ran across a Christian pamphlet that said >among other things that women exposing their *knees* was what >incited men to rape.... >P. As far as this goes, why is there an attitude that a female wearing something "revealing" by whatever standards you care to name is inciting men to rape? On the other hand, why is this not considered to be a problem (as far as I know) on a beach or in a swimming pool? The women are wearing even less than they probably wear on the street, but this does not seem to be viewed as incitement. i.e. I can wear a bathing suit at the beach, but if I add, say, a pair of shorts and wear it on the street, it's "too revealing." Muffy (Yes, I know, this isn't always the case, but I hear it often enough to wonder why.)
cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (05/07/85)
> In article <908@homxa.UUCP> carson@homxa.UUCP (P.CARSTENSEN) writes: > >A couple years ago, I ran across a Christian pamphlet that said > >among other things that women exposing their *knees* was what > >incited men to rape.... > >P. > > > As far as this goes, why is there an attitude that a female wearing something > "revealing" by whatever standards you care to name is inciting men to rape? > On the other hand, why is this not considered to be a problem (as far as I > know) on a beach or in a swimming pool? The women are wearing even less than > they probably wear on the street, but this does not seem to be viewed as > incitement. i.e. I can wear a bathing suit at the beach, but if I add, say, > a pair of shorts and wear it on the street, it's "too revealing." > > Muffy > > (Yes, I know, this isn't always the case, but I hear it often enough to > wonder why.) I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I feel like throwing it in anyway. First, rapists are a tremendously broad group; I'm sure that the vast majority of them are going to be raping women even if all women wore floor length dresses and veils. However, considering that there are perhaps a few rapists who may be pushed over the edge by a women dressed provocatively (which is not necessarily correlated with the amount of skin exposed), it would seem wise to avoid looking for trouble, in the same manner that a rational person doesn't walk down an alley in a "bad" area of town. (Of course, this may work just the opposite way as well, for a few tweak-outs.) Incidentally, the difference between a swim suit at the pool, and wearing the same outfit walking down the street is a matter of what we are used to. From a rational standpoint, it makes no sense; however, people are not rational.