Introducing the new slap-padded abayas for Saudi women

Women in Saudi Arabia got very upset and reportedly 'protested' when they heard a judge arguing that if a husband gives $320 to his wife and she spends $240 on an abaya from a brand shop (abaya is the black cover Muslim women wear) she deserves to be slapped by her husband as punishment. We all know there are billions of poor people in China and elsewhere, kids included, sweating long hours to produce cheap $2 counterfeits. If a Saudi husband slaps his shopaholic wife then surely it must be out of respect to that little kid in China sweating blood to compete with Hermes. Yup, we all buy that!

It's becoming plain obvious that men in Saudi Arabia think backwards when it comes to understanding the shopping nature of women, a nature so complex and subtle it took years in Enlightenment intensive care for the man of the West to fathom. There is a universal truth that says that if you are the man and give your woman a $320 shopping allowance for an abaya and still seriously expect that she will buy the $2 one, the problem is not with the woman but with the man harboring foolish and unrealistic expectations.

The Western man, after many years of trial and error, responded by eventually letting women work so they don't have to be giving them allowances. The Saudi man still thinks that a slap here and there will do. How conceited!

Wish conceit was that simple though.

If women in Saudi Arabia are slapped a lot, isn't it convenient that they have to wear that black cover all the time? It's a full-blown cover and it's so full that you can hide anything you like underneath. Women also tend to wear sun glasses when they go out so with their eyes rendered fashion-invisible that means one can hide all the shame he wants in a woman. Although original use might not have been thus intended, the abaya is probably the most convenient camouflage for all sorts of slapping to flourish in a society. The good news here, of course, is that Saudi men don't beat women indiscriminately.

They will only do it if there is a good reason to do so. And there always is. Next time you are about to make any unfair generalizations about the state of happy beatings in Saudi Arabia, please remember the Chinese little kid sweating blood to make a counterfeit we all love to have or buy.

What if the global recession forces men in Saudi Arabia to up the slapping ante though? Women might become too scared to buy $240 abayas and that's profit-depressive for foreign and local luxury brands. My advice to all brands operating in the country would be to consider padding the expensive abayas with cushion to soften the blow from the slapping. They will be advertised as smart abayas but only Saudi women will know what is really smart and intelligent about their design.

Every luxury item has a cost. In Saudi Arabia the cost is the threshold of pain that can be tolerated to justify the purchase. Increase threshold pain-tolerance and recapture market share from Chinese counterfeits.

I know. It's definitely a woman's dignity not to be slapped. But it's also a woman's right to be able to buy the $240 abaya she so much desires without being fearful of the slapping afterward just because some young kid in China sweats blood to sell a cheap counterfeit on the street that her husband secretly hopes she won't buy so that he can beat her after.

Recap. The man who doesn't want to have to beat his wife over a $240 piece of cloth let's her woman work for it. The man who likes to beat her woman gives her the money and pretends he is upset about how she spends it.

How many Saudi men actually go all the way to insist that the wife returns the expensive abaya back to the shop? I really don't want to know the actual number because I doubt there are many items returned.

Sometimes I seriously wonder, why is our world so mentally crooked and twisted? Why can't you just slap someone without costing you $240?

Just Kiddinggggg! :D:D:D

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