Op-Ed: Saudi Women Shatter the Lingerie Ceiling

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Kelsey Dake

A social revolution began in Saudi Arabia this month, and it has little if anything to do with the Arab Spring. Women are going to work in lingerie shops. The Ministry of Labor is enforcing a royal decree issued last summer ordering that sales personnel in shops selling garments and other goods, like cosmetics, that are only for women must be female. In Saudi Arabia, where women have always been excluded from the public work force, it is a critical breakthrough. The lingerie shops are breaking that taboo. But social conservatives and the religious establishment objected, arguing that Islam prohibited women from working outside the home and that putting women in retail shops would expose them to the view of any passing stranger. [link]