Let them sell bras!

A social revolution began in Saudi Arabia this month, and it has little if anything to do with the Arab Spring: women are going to work in lingerie shops. The Ministry of Labor is enforcing a royal decree issued last summer ordering that sales personnel in shops selling garments and other goods, like cosmetics, that are only for women must be female. More than 28,000 women applied for the jobs, the ministry said. Anywhere else in the world, it would not be news that sales assistants in shops selling panties and bras were female. In Saudi Arabia, where women have always been excluded from the public work force, it is a critical breakthrough. This is not just about intimate garments; this is a milestone on the arduous path to employment equality for women in a country where they are systematically excluded from retail activity. It can be better, because if women are going to work in those shops, they would still need a man to drive them because they are prohibited from driving. This gross discrimination of women is slowly being eroded away, but there's still the issue of voting, running for public office, and driving to pick at.