This is such an awesome mental image.<p>"When the hall flooded with nearly 3,000 women, some as young as 13 and others in their 50s, it was a shock. “I definitely did not expect moms to come,” Felwa said. Back then, it was mandatory for women to wear the traditional black abaya, and often a headscarf, while in public. It was only when the women walked through the doors into the all-female space that their abayas slipped off to reveal an array of cosplay costumes."
I lived in KSA for about 2 months doing post delivery services on a project at the client's office. As I started befriending some of the personnel, I found one of them had a daughter from his first wife. He was very angry at her and blamed her for the child, basically saying that she had become pregnant on purpose so that he would have to cancel his trip to Europe where he was planning on finding his fourth wife. He was the fairer and kinder man of the bunch over there. Most of them were mostly busy making stunts to have some time off at work and look good, not caring at all about work or worst, create problems so as to gain leverage against our company for negociation. They separated the immigrants workers in poor shared offices from the KSA citizens. Offices were also missing drinkable water even thought it was in a capital city (I could see skyscrapers...)...<p>Ever since that trip, while I hope they'll see some positive change for women's right, I fear the opposite might happen to our countries due to low demographics. I don't believe we are benefiting from a relationship with that country at all, there is not point in even taking time to deal with them.
Saudi Arabia is a Middle Eastern North Korea.<p>America's fascination with it is beyond understanding.<p>How can the world's most libertarian nation fawn over one that is the least free?
Makes me think of a meme or cartoon:<p><a href="https://me.me/i/cmdr-rheon-magerheon-replying-to-griglager-thi-s-sug-is-c97c16ad6a7848c88ad40b703fd340cd" rel="nofollow">https://me.me/i/cmdr-rheon-magerheon-replying-to-griglager-t...</a><p>Though when I was a teen "gamer girl" -- mostly RPGs -- I looked like a cross between the two images. You can be a gamer girl and also be pretty and like nice clothes.<p>I was usually the only girl there. Glad to see progress on this front across the globe.
This reminds me of the gender-based discrimination in Banks’ Culture novel The Player of Games.<p>It’s still astounding to me to see a country keep half of its population in effective slavery.