The complexities of Saudi Arabia's gender apartheid are highlighted by the latest campaign against men selling underwear to women. Reem Asaad, a female economics professor in Jeddah, is urging a boycott of lingerie shops that don't employ saleswomen.

She argues that women can feel embarrassed buying underwear from male staff, but replacing them with female staff is difficult because of traditionalist objections to working women.

The issue has been rumbling on for more than five years, since the government issued a decree aimed at increasing female employment. In 2006, the authorities threatened to prosecuteshops that failed to comply, but no action appears to have been taken. At the time, a survey in Jeddah found that out of 247 shops selling lingerie and beauty products only three employed women.

Meanwhile, the Shura Council (Saudi Arabia's unelected parliament) is to consider a plan for women-only public transport in the kingdom. It is said that this would benefit around two million female workers and save them money on hiring male drivers.

A much simpler way forward, of course, would be to let women drive their own cars – but Saudi traditionalists are still very reluctant to allow that.

And, as I've said before in connection with Egypt, segregated transport does nothing for women's rights – it further entrenches discrimination.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is visiting Saudi Arabia today. Maybe she could tell the Saudis a thing or two about the battles over segregated transport in America during the 1950s:

Under the system of segregation used on Montgomery buses, white people who boarded the bus took seats in the front rows, filling the bus toward the back. Black people who boarded the bus took seats in the back rows, filling the bus toward the front.

Eventually, the two sections would meet, and the bus would be full. If other black people boarded the bus, they were required to stand. If another white person boarded the bus, then everyone in the black row nearest the front had to get up and stand, so that a new row for white people could be created. 

Often when boarding the buses, black people were required to pay at the front, get off, and reenter the bus through a separate door at the back. Sometimes the bus-drivers would drive away before black passengers were able to reboard.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 16 February 2010.