11/11/2003: De-faced products in Saudi Arabia

This is a Safeway (really? so the cap says) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It turns out that there's a government censor whose job it is to scribble out all the women's faces on all the imported products, since their favorite form of way-strict Islam restricts ANY display of women's faces, even on packaging.

It sure is good they did that, 'cause now I have no impure thoughts!

I wonder how much of a demand for hair-coloring products they have over there.

Hey, somebody's gotta defend all those pure men from the Western girl pictured on the front, who is described quite directly as "Nice 'n Easy." Scandalous!

Good point, hp.... I assume they already took the "Nasty & Easy" ones off the market there.

They didn't do a very good job of censoring. It's kind of a half-assed job if you ask me. It doesn't stop you from seeing anything.

That was the point of my post, me too-er.

How dare you!

What do you expect? It's a government job, just because it's a religious duty too doesn't mean it gets done any less half-assed than any other government job.

There's something really funny about hair coloring products for a market where the women tend to keep their hair covered. Even more so when most of them are dark-haired enough that the products shown will have little effect.

Now that would be one damned wierd job.

Arabian Joke

What a joke! How can these people take themselves seriously? I usually pride myself on having an open mind but displays like this really bother me. Imagine you were walking down the supermarket aisle looking for that favourite hair product or moisturiser and all the womens faces had been scribbled on. Absolutely ridiculous! And this is only the tip of the iceberg - I could rant for pages about how wrong the Muslim faith is in pretty much everything they do but I wont.

If this is what happens on store boxes, I wonder what they do to television...

A government censor is stationed in every household to hold little boxes over all female faces on the tube.

Or as stuff shows on TV, someone starts scribbling over their faces like this:

The blonde got a veil instead of the full burqua. Hmm.

seems the manufacturer could save money with plain brown wrappers.

<EM>> really? so the cap says</EM>

Yeah, really. They have Safeway there. I've been in 'em. And that blue crap (normally they use black pen with better coverage; this is an unusually crappy specimen) is all over EVERYTHING.

I remember when I was a kid, I used to get MAD magazines (I lived next country over in the United Arab Emirates; I don't think MAD gets into Saudi Arabia) with a good 25% of the pages blacked out.

As for mwbEEf and russotto:
You'd be surprised what the market is for hair colouring products, fancy lingerie, makeup, etc. is over there. Per capita, I'd say it's much higher than it would be here in North America. The women do all kinds of unbelievable things underneath the abaya. And no-one ever sees it; often not even the husbands (ESPECIALLY not the husbands in many cases) even though they'd be the only man ever allowed to see them without the abaya. Just one form of rebellion against the status quo.

"Them girls wear things, that we ain't seen, beneath them gingham gowns."
Sorry, that old song popped into my head.

So I found this thread where I mentioned a friend of mine who used to live in Saudi Arabia. I was never able to convince her to come on here and tell her wild stories, but here's one:

I believe this was sometime around 1970-72. She was living there with her then-husband at her infant daughter. They had a "Women's Day" at the local zoo. This was a day when women and young children could go to the zoo, and the women did not have to wear veils (isn't that nice?)

She showed up to the zoo with her daughter but her camera was confiscated, because they thought she would take pictures of women's faces, which they consider to be pornography.

Saudis fear a shortage of sand

Let's put it politely: they're not exactly intellectuals.

It's harsh, I know, but I would call the above gardening tool a "spade".

It's a "spade".

And people who live in the desert and fear sand shortages, and cut off women's clits and mark over their faces on packaging are "morons".

I'm sure there are many people in S.A. who are not morons. I wish there were a lot more of them.

Adultery is a capital crime in Saudi Arabia (from what I have read).

Now, don't you think that's maybe a little not right?

No, wolf, I read a story a few years ago of a guy being publicly executed for adultery. He was single, but slept with a married woman.