it´s not xenophobic to not want to go to Saudi Arabia as a woman...it´s just common sense.

The more Western women and men who refuse to set foot in that evil psychotic hellhole the better....let´s make it logically impossible for our governments to do business there.

Kate, this employee walks the walk for women´s equal rights, to the extent of losing her job, and you bash her for it? Where´s your head? This lady is a real feminist, and deserves our applause.

Even Saudi Arabia´s Gulf neighbors think the Kingdom is a sick place...I ought to know, I´ve been in the Gulf awhile. You couldn´t drag me kicking and screaming into Saudi under any pretenses, I´ve heard too many stories. Including one in which a British Airlines stewardess got raped and strangled by nine men there.

This stewardess refusing to go there is hopefully the start of a trend. Saudi makes North Korea´s weirdness look sane. It´s time we quit ignoring that just because of oil.

It seemed in that case, a female USAF pilot of an A-10, was told to wear a black sack while offpost to avoid harassment from the Saudis. But she noticed that when she did, she got bullied by the Saudi thugs who carry sticks to whap women who act uppity, while western women in jeans were left alone. Which makes me wonder if wearing the black sack just invites bullying from the Saudis, who then think "Well, OK, we've got this one cowed!"

And maybe the BMI had a point, that dressing according to Saudi custom just invites harassment.

I wonder what would happen if one of the Saudi morality cops with his stick tried publicly belting, say, Lucia Rijker or maybe Cory Everson.

Sorry, I meant "maybe the BMI employee had a point."

This is a tricky situation. Given past history and well documented cases of abuse, there is an argument for western women to steer clear of Saudi Arabia.

We are faced with a similar situation at my company now. We own a factory in Tijuana. We routinely send down engineers and other personnel to support their opperations. However as the violence has increased in Mexico over the last couple of months (they found a severed head one block from the factory a couple of months ago) many of our US personnel do not want to travel to Mexico.

The situation has not yet come to a head since there are currently no 'mission critical' projects in Tijuana that require support and we have been able to fly people up here for training. But at some point we are going to have a situation of needing to send someone down there and having and having the necessary person say no and sights the violence.

not worn the abaya or followed the ridiculous directions about spacing, and dared BMI to fire her. Tactical error.

Agreed. Please explain to me again why "cultural sensitivity" only works one way, and is not a valid defense in Ashton's own desire to avoid the area? She wasn't planning to visit as a tourist.

I looked at the airline's site, and apparently they go to many international cities. Why couldn't they roster her to anyone of these other routes? How many years has she been with the airline? I can only see the 20% pay cut as valid is she was jr level (since new employees are often limited to domestic trips), and maybe the Saudi route is considered to be as undesirable as a domestic one.

Why do commercial airlines even fly to this region?

Thank you, postnoodz, I've wondered about that for a while. Ironically, the only commentator I've heard raise that is Thomas "The world will be flat in another six months" Friedman, when he cited the shooting of American doctors in Yemen by fantics who accused them of spreading Christianity. Why, Friedman asked, don't we forcefully say to these countries that we don't have a problem with your storefront Islamic centers, but yet you have a problem with anybody of a different religion?

From the couple of decades that I've spent as a union steward, this case presents a classic case of insubordination. My advice to people being asked to do something they didn't think they should be asked to do was always, EMPHATICALLY to "do what they tell you to do, and THEN grieve it". In cases other than clear cut situations where you're being asked to break the law, or endanger yourself or others, ANY flat out refusal to "follow a direct order" could and would be seen as insubordination, and that is nearly universally ruled as a firing offense by arbitrators. Of course, a REAL lawyer can always fudge the exceptions, but, clearly, in this woman's case, she should have done the flight and THEN grieved it.

I am, of course, assuming she was unionized. But, since there's a gender discrimination aspect to this, perhaps that's not even the main consideration. I believe that, even in the absence of a union contract, the same principle applies: Follow the order, THEN grieve it.

Here in Florida we had a case of a Muslim woman in the Orlando who wanted to get a driver's license while wearing a hood that revealed only her eyes. Of course, there were the usual arguments about cultural diversity. But apparently she did not feel that she was obligated to respect a culture that regards wearing masks in public as a sign of criminal intent. In fact, Florida back in the 1950s passed an anti-mask law to suppress Ku Klux Klan intimidation.

Why do commercial airlines even fly to this region?

Because so many Saudis want to get out of their country and get a break from the insanity there. Or at least the men go to have a bit of R&R in London.

I think there is more to the story. She was willing and desirous to do other long hauls - just not to SA which has a policy towards women akin to apartheid (sp?) They were forcing her hand. Obviously by offering another job that would be 20% paycut means they were trying to "appear" to work with her. And her declination of a lesser job was their excuse to get rid of her.

Should she had flown to SA and refused to wear the abaya? We'll that would have been a good game plan. But women get raped and murdered in SA and are regarded so low that it doesn't get punished unless they are forced to.

She could have lost more than 20% pay if she flew and challenged the dress code. And the airline would have probably got her for that.

I wonder what the real story being the firing is?