Wise people have been startled by the fact that while the Ministry of Labor encourages employment of women, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has gone the other direction by banning women from working for a cosmetics company.

In response to criticisms over the move, the spokesman for the commission issued a statement that failed to adequately define the regulations that they have enforced in this regard.

The statement explained that the sacking of dozens of women who had been working at the Gazzaz showrooms was to prevent a “mixed gender environment,” a term that has only been adopted in recent decades. We don’t really know who first imposed the ban on the intermingling of genders in the workplace. And, for its part, the commission does not accept any criticism of its “infallible” agents.

The statement declares that the commission works “according to systematic regulations that correspond and harmonize with other governmental authorities.”

Well, all right then. If the commission corresponds and harmonizes with other governmental authorities, then they must know that the Ministry of Labor hired these women. The ministry is another governmental authority. So where does the harmonizing take place?

In fact, the statement is very clear in this regard. It states the following: “The commission has the right to do whatever its members feel obliged to in spite of the criticisms and writings that lack credibility.”

Why the threatening tone? Perhaps members of the commission are aware of what the Caliph Omar ibn Al-Khattab once said: “May Allah have mercy upon the person who makes me aware of my flaws.” Humans make mistakes and only wise people try to learn from their mistakes.

The country and the private sector are making a great deal of effort to reduce unemployment and help the growth of the national work force by training cadres to work in the job market.

On the other hand, the commission is still confused, struggling to analyze the meaning of a “mixed-gender environment.”

If preventing women and men from working in the same environment is the core issue, then we should shut down the hospitals in our country where women nurses and male doctors work together. We should suspend every driver in the country, too, since these men typically serve women.

Wise people know better.