JEDDAH, 15 August 2006 — In a society where men rarely interact directly with members of the opposite sex, Saudi women use their feminine wiles to get what they want when shopping — be it cutting themselves a good discount or walking out of a shop with something in hand FOC, free of charge.
It could be argued that it is not uncommon for women to use their sexuality as a tool to get what they want, but Saudi women more than others can find more vulnerable victims to prey on, considering that virtually all salesmen are, well, men.
“When I first started my job in a women’s clothes shop a few years back, I got hustled a number of times by women customers,” said Abudi, a 27-year-old sales clerk in the Eastern Province.
He described how women would casually distract him by the slip of the abaya or other ways of distracting him by flashing parts of her body. (It should be noted here that this “flirtation” would be considerably less provocative than by Western standards, and might only entail a glimpse of a woman’s more revealing clothing beneath her covering.)
Abudi said that he often found himself marking down prices, or even noticing that some items had been shoplifted as flirty women customers were distracting him.
In time he said that he managed to get his act together and not fall for women customers’ scams. “But it took me a while to adapt,” he said smiling.
Nasser, a 24-year-old sales clerk, said that every time a new employee comes in he goes through the same routine of being played by his female customers.
“History repeats itself each time a new salesman is hired, especially those working in shops that deal with women’s products,” he said. “We try to warn the newcomers of what they are up against.”
He said that sales clerks have to be especially wary of groups of women that enter stores.
“It’s a seasonal phenomena,” Saleh Al-Abadi a salesman in his thirties at a jewelry shop located in south Jeddah said to Al-Madinah newspaper. “What’s weird about it is that most of the time the offenders are respectful-looking women — they’re well-dressed and appear very wealthy. They are the kind a salesman would rush to serve, displaying the largest number of items to secure a sale.”
Experience has taught Al-Abadi to be more careful with customers.
“They cause a commotion in the store, making the salesman to lose concentration,” he said.
Wafa Al-Amoudi, 38 said, “I, as a woman, am ashamed of what some women do while supposedly shopping.”
Al-Amoudi suggested that employing women as sales clerks would help curb the problem.
“If anything this should encourage Saudi authorities to employ women in department shops concerning their products.” she said.
Al-Amoudi was alluding to the ongoing proposal in the Kingdom to replace male sales clerks in certain stores with women as part of the Saudization program. With unemployment rates of women as high as 95 percent, authorities believe that retail jobs in shops catering to women is a good place to start.
A group of young Saudi university women students told Arab News that distracting the salesmen or exercising their “womanly talents” can sometimes be a challenge. They said that they do it for the kicks.
“It’s also getting back at men, God knows how much they get on our nerves so what’s wrong with rattling theirs?” said Suha, 24. “We don’t steal but, yes, we manipulate them to get ourselves a good bargain. Sometimes it only takes a bit of smiling, a bit of softening the voice or a bit of leaning over across the counter. It’s harmless.”
A former lingerie salesman disagreed when he heard that such conduct was described as “harmless”.
“It was frustrating and irritating,” said former salesman who preferred to be called Taha.
“Imagine during a day in Ramadan, a woman coming up to you and opening up her abaya to show you her size or a woman showing you the exact garment she wants to buy a duplicate of from the shop, one that she is still wearing!”
He concluded “The Labor Ministry should speed the process of letting women handle the sales where women’s clothes are concerned. Women handle women better — we are no match!”
