Warning to Women

Interesting, this. I scan through the job postings in our two newspapers occasionally, not because I am seeking employment, but because it is interesting to me that the ads which are placed can be so specific, i.e., they can state what age they want the applicants to be, or what nationality. Imagine a job advertisement in the States doing so! The ACLU or Labor Board would be involved so quickly heads would spin. I have yet to see a single job advertisement that looks suspiciously like a front for some sort of "entertainment agency" or "escort service" in the papers, here; perhaps they are only in the Arabic papers.

According to the article, "The advertisements in question often offer attractive salaries and benefits to women job seekers who do not have any experience or qualifications... The employers will say that applicants will be given necessary training. Some women job seekers said when they contacted the advertisers, they were told that the employers were seeking pretty, forward-looking women who would not object to mingling with men." What kind of position is being advertised, anyway? And, someone tell me what a "forward-looking" woman looks like... I can understand the not objecting "to mingling with men," and by that, I mean to putting men and women in the same office together - hardly the same as "mingling" at a party. There are, no doubt, many in this society, which for so long has kept sexes separated, that would be outraged at the mere thought of men AND women working together in the same office.

One Saudi woman who spoke about applying for a secretarial job said, "When I contacted them for the job, I was told the applicant should be open-minded, mature and beautiful." Okay. I can see some of the reasoning... "Open-minded," as in not being adverse to working in a "mixed" sex [male AND female] environment... "Mature," as in having some experience in the world versus that of a teenager who has not learned the basics insofar as work ethics, or the meaning of showing up for "her" job and being on time... But, "beautiful?" I am in full agreement that THAT is going just one step too far. [And, besides, aren't women, here, required to be covered head-to-toe in black when they leave their homes? How would you know if she was beautiful or not?!?]

I will have to start paying a lot more attention to the help-wanted postings to see if I come across any that would fit into the category that "The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" is warning about "that aim at luring women into immorality."