@Pizzagirl I wouldn’t call Jeddah ‘relatively liberal’. Better than Riyadh, yes, but much more restrictive than, say, Khobar or Dammam or Abha. But I agree that they seem to be improving, albeit slowly.
@Pizzagirl that was my point that even if suddenly women weren’t going to be flogged or whatever barbaric practice for driving, how would things change for something as complex as driving skill?
And the really wealthy Saudi families spend their summers in London to escape the heat in their home country during those months. The rules must be somewhat relaxed once they are abroad. Kensington Gardens was chock full of Saudi women on summer afternoons and evenings walking about unescorted by men.
Yes - many of these women wear “regular” clothing and go about unescorted by men when they are away. Which is sort of the whole point - they’re oppressed in their home country and the wealthy ones have temporary reprieves! And of course the Saudi single men go hog wild when they are away from Saudi … and can finally seek the companionship of females …
In Bangkok, I see plenty of tourist Saudi men wearing comfortable Western-style Tshirts & shorts in the oppressive summertime heat/humidity. They have their wives in tow, smothered from head to toe in black. Some of the wives are even wearing black gloves & a sheer additional veil to cover the eyeholes of their niqab.
The craziest thing I ever saw was a group of niqab clad Saudi women in a shopping mall, posing for tourist photos. You can tell them apart by their expensive handbags.
“The craziest thing I ever saw was a group of niqab clad Saudi women in a shopping mall, posing for tourist photos. You can tell them apart by their expensive handbags.”
Saw the same thing in Stockholm this summer. And you could tell who was the mom and figure out the birth order of the daughters, because the bags progressed from a “cheap” Suki to a YSL to a Reissue to a Birkin. 
Well then, I would never be able to identify them, since one purse pretty much looks like another to me
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35231046
1,000 men of Arab or North African appearance went on a sexual groping spree in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. 8 men who were detained had their refugee papers on them. 80 women were assaulted.
Have you actually ever been there? I’ve been diving off the Red Sea. I’ve been on the beach in Al-Khobar and Jeddah in a bathing suit. Could send you a picture if you like. Complete with camels. Not in Riyadh, but it’s inland. I’ve been in restaurants with two married couples unrelated. I did NOT live in a compound. I’ve been shopping without head covering or abaya. And I’m not white, so don’t start accusing them of being racist.
Ugh… savages.
I hear Denmark, Norway and Sweden are tightening border controls, and Norway is starting to get pretty tired of the refugees altogether. Good for them.
European leaders have made a very bad decision that will have repurcussions for years.
No one knows what they’re learning over there so a quick lesson about Norway’s laws is good thing.
Norway’s green party suggested sending refugees to Svalbard ([“where polar bears outnumber people”](http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/norways-green-party-proposes-sending-refugees-to-archipelago-svalbard-where-bears-outnumber-people/news-story/3b6e35050534e8deef4c20c640c85c63)), lol. They have a pretty dark, but amusing (if you ask me), sense of humor over there.
We don’t know necessarily that the garbage behind this were recent immigrants, but whoever did this, this is disgusting. It isn’t like we haven’t seen things like this in the US, I seem to recall back in the 80’s a phenomenon called "whirlpooling’ where young, predominantly black or hispanic men, would surround women and grope them and such (I don’t know if it was limited to the NYC area, or if it was happening across the country). Originally it started in the summer at public pools, where they often would end up pulling down a girl’s bathing suit top or bottom, but spread to other places (and fortunately, died off)…not to mention the culture at certain fraternities or among jocks that is just as disgusting towards women.
To be honest, as liberal as I am, the reaction of the Mayor of Cologne is what really disgusted me. Not saying you cannot blame refugees (among other things, we don’t know who did this yet), but rather in this:
“Mayor Reker promised preventive measures ahead of the carnival. The authorities would warn young women about possible risks and “give a better explanation to people from other cultures about the meaning of carnival”, she said.”
While it is never bad to educate people about risks, as a response to possible problems at Carnival this is almost blaming the victim. What are they going to tell the young women? That they should be careful not to dress in ‘provocative clothing’ and that they shouldn’t assume Carnival is safe to have some fun? There is such thing as common sense, but this is akin to the slimeball people when the football players in Ohio decided to sexually assault a girl passed out from drinking, blaming her for being drunk, rather than the mutants who did it. Likewise, I find it shocking that they think the answer is they need to teach people from other cultures what carnival is about…last I checked, I don’t know of any celebration that says it is okay to rob people or sexually assault them. What this translates to me is “oh, in their culture, if a woman is in public by themselves or if they aren’t bundled up in the old sackcloth covering,they are considered fair game,she is nothing but a prostitute or beneath contempt so we should educate the poor dears that in our decadent western culture, we don’t view women like that”…you have to be kidding me, I have heard drivel, but that takes the cake, it is basically an excuse for what is nothing more than criminal, disgusting behavior. They shouldn’t have cultural education, what they should be doing is making clear that there will be no tolerance for this kind of behavior, and if they get caught the penalties will be severe.
When I hear stuff like this, I can just see some judge when someone has been convicted of sexual assault, saying “oh, you didn’t know any better, so I’ll give you probation”, it is explaining away criminal, predatory behavior as ‘cultural’ and therefore is only ‘somewhat bad’. There is an irony to this, if in fact the perpetrators are of North African or Arab background, the cultures they come from have all these rules designed to protect women supposedly (being covered up, not allowed to be alone on the street, etc) but those protections end if you don’t follow the proscriptions, once you go outside those, you aren’t a woman any more…it is like the culture around honor killings when a woman gets raped, it blames the victims, not the perpetrator, and basically paints the culture for what it truly is, and it certainly is not respectful towards women.
“Have you actually ever been there? I’ve been diving off the Red Sea. I’ve been on the beach in Al-Khobar and Jeddah in a bathing suit. Could send you a picture if you like. Complete with camels. Not in Riyadh, but it’s inland. I’ve been in restaurants with two married couples unrelated. I did NOT live in a compound. I’ve been shopping without head covering or abaya. And I’m not white, so don’t start accusing them of being racist.”
Yes, I have been there (Jeddah specifically). Fall of 2010. And no, there were no women in bathing suits. Everyone (myself included) in full Abaya/Hijab at all times.
There are some cultural practices that are just evil. There is no relative right and wrong in these cases.
Not blocked in my country (also U.S.).
This is what I get when I click on the link in post #50.
The link in post #53 works.
Wow, Saudi Arabia sounds really horrible. Why is this country our ally?