One step forward.
Prepared by: Bassem
As I was flipping through Okaz newspaper today I came upon an interesting
news story. It says that in a first of its kind event, 20 girls have started
their practical training of working as cashier registers at a big shopping
center in Jeddah, the reporter didn’t mention which shopping center though.
It also says that the practical training program is in collaboration with
the General Organization of Technical Education and Vocational Training
which, I think, indicates the governmental direction towards pumping girls
into the open working field.
According to the training program director, Areej Nooh, the number of applicants wasn’t that much but she expects it to
increase in the upcoming cycles of the program. The girls have been trained theoretically on all aspects of working as a cashier register and now have started the practical part of the program.
I wonder if they trained them on how to handle the harassments they’re bound to suffer.
Anyhow, good luck to them.
Link in Arabic
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More power to whoever is behind this!
And I’m hoping that video surveillance and mutawwa-dudes are enough to check the harassment, ’cause some Saudi males give a totally new definition to the word.
Didn’t Panda Supermarkets and Hypermarkets employ ladies at the cash registers a while back only to face so many problems from harassment as well as Mutawa3a (Claiming it’s haraam) that they scrapped the whole plan and went back to having males?
Actually my mother dealt with one of the female cashiers at Panda back then and she told me that they were extremely slow at processing items… Regardless, she was glad for this step to take place and said she didn’t mind the extra wait if it meant more jobs for the locals in need, especially females… It’s only normal that they will be slower than the trained expats at first… Later on they’ll eventually do as good a job, if not better than the expats that were there before them!
and look wht do we got here
nice blog guys
Saif, what i’m afraid of is that Mutawwa dudes will be of the ones harrasing the female employees!
OT, really? I didn’t know that. Hopefully this time it will continue. The same thing happened when they started emplying Saudi male cash registers. They were slow at first but then most of them actually improved.
I know Fitaihi in Jeddah has female serving the customers, and when I was there with my family, i was so pleasantly surprised to see them. I don’t know which supermarkets these women are working in, but I am glad they are there…
Mansur
harassments !!!!!
salam. is female cashier a rarity in jeddah? in my country, i think even 16 year olds can go back from school & work as a cashier in the afternoons. & my friend said the cashiers worst fear is really the register not tallying with the cash – they’ll just cut your salary. my friend makes jokes, that her salary could be negative even if she mistake the transaction. she’s so funny, she works & she pays the company.
anyway, if i’m the girls, i’d worry of that. if saudi men are nice people, why are the worries of harrassment?
Well, I personally worked in a supermarket in Jeddah before as a part-time job. I didn’t work on a cashier though. I worked in system admin and customer service.
Harrassment was not that bad. Honestly, it’s really how the woman carries herself and the attitude she gives. If she respects herself, everyone will respect her. When she proves herself to be competent and professional, her male colleagues will stand by her instead of try to get her phone number.
I think that is a great step to allow women more access to all kinds of jobs, instead of being restricted to limited options. That is especially beneficial for women with less qualifications.
If it happens that a woman was ’slower’ on a single occasion, then maybe she’s new or she hasn’t got enough training, so cut her some slack =)
oh btw, Bassem you are right, it was a muttawwa who gave me the biggest problems. He came everyday for a week to speak with my boss to help him correct his misguided ways.
No one. NO ONE. bothered me except this man who came every day to watch my actions and tell my boss how sinful it is to allow this to happen.
Like,aha, yea right, the reason I force myself everyday after school from 5pm to 11pm, instead of resting at home and having fun with my friends on weekends, is to do suspicious activities NOT work my ass off.
How backwards is that??!!
i think the religious people and the otherside ones are all overmasters.
both sides’ lobbyists must sit and talk to eachother for our nation’s future..they have to upgive some extremeness principles.
i become religious in some situations.Conversely, I find myself disagree with some muttawwas’ acts
in other events. BUT,
I belive that we must respect the demographics of each society here in Saudi Arabia unless there will be crossing with Islam .
saroom
Wow. Mutawwas in Jubail seriously don’t suck that much. They only thing they do is come to the soccer field at Maghrib time (in their GM trucks) and start shouting “Yellah shabab! Salah! Salah!”.
Some of them are even nice people.
Now I’m really concerned, once the guys from Riyadh get a hold of this, they will all re-locate to Jeddah….Oh nooo…God have mercy on us….
heeeeey nice blog
saroom : dont think that what s.a are doing in islam is right (i mean they r motashaddideen)
& motawwas r just trying to make saudi look good in front of ppl (the poblem is they dont know how :S)
The lady on the PA system at IKEA (the one with the nasal tone) is very annoying, every time I hear her I think, ‘oh no, has she been crying again?’
I’ve been reading a few of your blogs and it’s been interesting, I’ve discovered that most Saudi bloggers are well intentioned and love their deen and their culture and this is something that is very heartening. But I feel that in their quest for what they feel is right, they sometimes, inadvertently, go above and beyond what is sanctioned by our religion.
In light of that I’d like to propose a discussion on ‘Western thought styles and their relationship with and affect on Islam and Muslims’ although I do feel that the topic of modernism is so vast and so diverse that we would only be hopping from topic to topic without having agreed on anything. If at least one of you agrees to this discussion then we can proceed and agree on the topics of discussion.
I really hope that there will be at least four or five individuals who would be willing to spare a little of their time for what I hope would be an enlightening experience for both myself and others. I have just two conditions; that the people who would discuss with me be Muslims and that they promise to enter the discussion with an open mind. As for myself, and I know a few of you have seen how harshly I react when exasperated, I promise to restrain myself and try not be harsh with nor insult anyone.
And who am I? I’m a 20 something year old normal Muslim guy living in Jeddah. I do not claim to be a person knowledgeable in Islam nor do I claim to be exceptionally pious but I do believe that each and every one of us has to work to pull this ummah out of the depths of despair it has fallen into and this is my effort.
this blog has turned out to be dissapointing…………
really like the big rush at the beginning……
what happened?
fida …
Interesting. Is it the Culture or the Religion? I’m no scholar either man, but i do know this, I was raised by a single mom (medical secretary) in Jeddah and I respect any independent, free thinking woman. I ain’t got answers, but sure do have some questions. Such as, is a Indonesian woman worth less than a Saudi woman. If the answer is yes, then i guess there is no point for having this discussion. But if we answer that with a No, that leaves us with only one logical conclusion, we are all Hypocrites. Harsh.
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