I read Stack's article this morning and thought it was excellent - thanks for giving it the exposure it deserves.

I am glad you posted this.

fucking clear here. We are no position to impose our will, values or mandate cultural change in other nations. When you are in a foreign nation you WILL fucking conduct yourself consistent with their laws and customs. How fucking difficult is it to get that? Whine all you want about it, they don't give a shit. They shouldn't give a shit. It is, afterall, their country not ours. We expect them to conduct themselves according to our laws and customs when they arrive here. You really think they give 2 shits about what some feminist says in Saudi Arabia? These companies operating in foreign nations are well aware of the consequences, both legal and financial, if they try to impose culture, etc in other nations while operating there. Get over it. It isn't going to change and nobody really cares. We have enough problems in our own backyard to resolve without sticking our nose in other nations affairs.

One might substitute 'corporate' for 'U.S.' -

All U.S. fast-food franchises operating here, not just Starbucks, make women stand in separate lines. U.S.-owned hotels don't let women check in without a letter from a company vouching for her ability to pay...

I don't know how much differently non-U.S. corporations might behave.

Thanks for referencing this. I spent some time growing up as an American girl in a middle eastern country, and the LA Times article was the best thing I've seen written about being in a western female in a culture of veiling. I think it was somewhat harmful to me. It was intimidating and it unsettled my relationship to my own body. I really understood the writer's experiences, she put many of my confused feelings into words. (Of course there were many positive aspects to this experience as well.)

I do believe in cultural sensitivity, I also believe in equality and freedom. One reason I never went back to the Middle East is because I simply don't like the gender separation and the restrictiveness on females, I don't care to adjust to it. But I also bonded closely to some people there as a child, and so this is a loss, as well.

Of course other lands have their own customs, and that is their business. Sometimes it is appropriate to use boycotts or other economic measures because a country is so oppressive on its own people. We have never done this for any issue related to oppression of women, though this oppression is grevious in Saudi Arabia, as well as in other places. This inconsistency reflects the low status of women that persists in western cultures. If there was a large class of men who were treated the way women are, say as a caste, there would be international pressure to change the situation, I suspect.

My observation is that the culture of veiling has strange effects on men as well as women. They are overly sensitized to the sight of females. They also don't 'grow up' and learn impulse control. The responsibility for controlling men lies more completely on the female in a veiling culture such as Saudi Arabia. Women can be whipped because men have a feeling of arousal or distraction. It supports a kind of immaturity in men that is burdensome for women and is so unnecessary.

I remember being in an airport in that region and a woman in a full length abaya was stumbling around weeping hysterically. She was palpitating with an incredible helplessness and no one even looked at her twice. It was kind of shocking. She was a young woman, 20's, and following what seemed to be family members. Her suffering just didn't matter, was inside the family, and was no one's business, even in a public place. That is the invisible prison so common for women in that region.

It's another reason those purely reactionary narratives, which do speak to a certain truth, aren't enough. They simply allow us to identify with the plight of Saudi women in the only way we know how -- through the experiences of a Western woman. And all the while we're allowed to maintain ignorance about our own, peripheral participation.

I think you got a little carried away with your closing paragraph. Really, what else is an article written by a Western women for Westerners supposed to do, make pancakes?

I've wondered for years - ever since I had a college boyfriend stationed in Riyahd - what I would do if I were forced to visit Saudi Arabia. Would I don the clothes, leave my Bible at home, stand in the right line? What does it say about us as a country that we force both women and people of faith in the service to go to Saudi Arabia and conform to their norms, giving up both (in the case of Christians) the right to practice their religion and (in the case of women) the right to be treated as human beings?

Rosa Parks was a hero, but Rosa Parks was from here. A black women who was a European citizen visiting America wouldn't have had the same right to protest she had. There's a difference between trying to change your own society and passing judgment on someone else's society. I don't know what I would do if I were forced to visit that country. I do know that I wouldn't visit voluntarily, just as I refuse to attend weddings at churches which require women to cover their heads because Saint Paul said women's heads weren't made in the image of God; just as I refuse to enter private clubs which don't allow black or Jewish members.

"I don't need to," she said calmly, blinking slowly and deliberately. "If I have a father or a husband, why do I need to vote? Why should I need to work? They will take care of everything."

This was the quote which gave me the shivers.

Nice in theory, except for two things. What if they don't? What if they die? What if they beat you? What if you marry a lazy S.O.B. who lies around all day instead of working?

And then there's this: what if you have something to offer the world, something you should be doing, but you don't do it, because working is something other people do? Does Islam have a parable similar in spirit to "hiding a candle under a bushel"?