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By Aisha Gawad March 2, 2010 You know what I just can’t understand? Women who bring their beleaguered husbands and boyfriends shopping with them. These men walk around the mall as if they are being led into Hell itself. Especially the poor souls lingering awkwardly in lingerie shops, not wanting to look in any particular direction in case, who then inadvertently meet the eye of some lady holding panties up for size.  I would personally feel very self-conscious trying to buy underwear amongst a bunch of strange men. Now, imagine if these shops were staffed solely by men. I certainly wouldn’t want to consult them on size or fit. This is essentially the situation that Saudi Arabian women are objecting to...except in an extremely gender divided society, it would be about a million times worse. A woman can’t go shopping with a man in Saudi Arabia, but apparently it’s alright for her to buy her most intimate apparel from him. Because women often aren’t permitted to work in Saudi Arabia, most shopkeepers and salespeople are men. And despite a ruling by the labor ministry that requires women to work in such stores, the law has not been enforced. Reem Asaad, an economics professor in Jeddah, is setting out to change that. She is leading a two-week long boycott of lingerie shops staffed by men and is spreading the word through online outlets such as Facebook. She is drawing attention to an apparent contradiction in the thinking of hard-line religious clerics who say that women should be kept out of the work place. Yet somehow it is permissible for men to be handling strange women’s underthings and estimating bra sizes. Why gender segregation everywhere else but not in a women’s underwear store? Seems sort of silly, no? I am of course, not an advocate for gender segregation and I have no idea where the women who are participating in this boycott stand on that issue. Maybe Professor Asaad and her supporters are in favor of gender segregation or maybe they are just trying to win the chance for women to work at least in arenas where the clientele are predominately female.  I don’t know what their motives are, but if you ask me, if there was ever a place for gender segregation, it would be a lingerie store. So for that reason if that reason alone, I wish this boycott a success. Now, if only we could Victoria’s Secret to enforce a “No Boyfriends/Husbands” rule. Source: BBC News Contact the author: email: aisha.gawad@gmail.com twitter: http://twitter.com/ArabRaptor http://www.elanthemag.com/index.php/site/blog_detail/get_your_paws_off_my_panties_saudi_women_boycott_lingerie_stores-nid9851588/