US reporter surprised by Starbucks' men-only section in Saudi Arabia

Los Angeles Times reporter Megan Stack was happy to see a Starbucks in Saudi Arabia. When she ordered her drink, "the man behind the counter gave me a bemused look." He confronted her after she sat in a chair. "You cannot stay here," he said. "Men only." The reporter writes: "He didn't tell me what I would learn later: Starbucks had another, unmarked door around back that led to a smaller espresso bar, and a handful of tables smothered by curtains. That was the 'family' section. As a woman, that's where I belonged." (Los Angeles Times)

Comments

[atownsbuxrules]

Starbucks doesn't belong in that f*ed up world. I'm sad the company even compromises with a culture like that; that's where I personally draw the line.

But then, I like respect as a woman. What do I know? My brain must be too small to wrap around that one. :P

[Lou Sussler]

No, Starbucks doesn't belong there or in China either.

I guess the almighty dollar trumps human decency.

[Scorpio370]

Starbucks can go where they want. Do I agree with upholding something like that? No, absolutely not, but I wasn't born in that country, and chances are, neither were you. Different country, different culture. Somethings that are not acceptable to the US are in other countries, and who are we to judge them for centuries of the way they were raised.

If you go to another country, you should expect to have to abide by their cultures, whether you agree with them or not. (and if you don't agree, then maybe you shouldn't be there.)

[JJ]

But Scorp, one of the big values of Starbucks is respect and dignity for all people...how does setting up shop in Saudi Arabia and allowing women to be treated like this up-hold this standard? Bottom line-- SBUX should be more selective about where they put their stores, esp. since they are mostly company owned and NOT franchised. Yes, if you go to another country you must abide by their standards, which is why we shouldn't be over there in the first place since they don't follow the American Companys standards that they are making money off of.

This could and does happen in coutries that practice extreme Islam. It could happen any western country(will of the people) with the influx of people from Muslim country. In Saudi Arabia they also have police force that only inforces the muslim dress code for women. Most Americans dont realize how much freedom they have and how much most people in other countries do not. Most Americans dont realize that freedom can easly go away if we dont protect it.

[Lou Sussler]

"If you go to another country, you should expect to have to abide by their cultures, whether you agree with them or not. (and if you don't agree, then maybe you shouldn't be there.)"

You are absolutely right, which is why I personally wouldn't go there and is precisely why Starbucks shouldn't be there.

[Kelowna Starbucks Rebel]

I agree that the way the Saudis are treating women is unacceptable, but isn't one of our guiding principles to embrace diversity? Who are we to play moral police when dealing with a culture with which we are unfamiliar?

[Scorpio370]

JJ, You busted me on this one. I have to agree 100% with giving respect and dignity to everyone. The question is, do the SBux over there have the same standards as us or not? Are they corporate owned or not.

[surfer]

"I agree that the way the Saudis are treating women is unacceptable, but isn't one of our guiding principles to embrace diversity? Who are we to play moral police when dealing with a culture with which we are unfamiliar?"

C'mon. This is the same culture that permits and encourages female circumcision. It's an entire attitude towards women. Trust me, my husband is middle eastern. It is okay to play moral police when defending what is right.

[Chris]

Difficult not to get political or preachy in discussions like this. We all colour the world with our prejudices and rarely see things for what they are. Speaking as a white European male, having spent sixteen years living in Saudi Arabia, and being, to my mind at least, relatively uncompromising when it comes to matters of human dignity, gender equality and whatnot -- in the Saudi Arabia I know, I couldn't imagine it any other way. We often take for granted the fact certain things work in our western 'democracies'. Rarely realising, for that matter, that fifty years ago they wouldn't have.

[sbuxnewbie]

The Starbucks stores in the Mideast, as well as in many other countries, are woned by a cooperative venture between Starbucks and a local (in the case of Saudi Arabia, Kuwati-owned) business.

They are not company-owned stores.

The rules they follow, are the rules of the country.

Is it right? No, I don't think so. Is it a business-driven decision? Yup.

Should stockholders bitch and scream and rant and rave about it? Oh, yeah.

...Speaking as a stockholder, of course.

Will it change anything? No, probably not.

[Charlie B]

"They are not company-owned stores."

Who actually owns the stores is but a technically. Starbucks owns the brand.

Brand Management 101 – thou shall not crap on the brand you spent a gazillion dollars building.

Denigrating women in Saudi Arabia just to make another dollar isn’t going to be a big hit with female employees in the US.

It's rather ethnocentric to pretend that we Americans have all of the answers. Yes, women and men can sit in the same room here, but can we really say that we have true gender equality here? Each culture takes their own moral and ethical path- we might be further along in our pursuit, but I don't think we have the right to stand on our pedestal and cry out against Starbucks. The really hard work is to improve our world around us, right here.

[Anony2]

Anon,
That kind of complacency is what allowed hitler to gain his foothold in Europe...

[R]

It's assumed that the women are being forced into the separate espresso bar; in fact, it's quite possible that the Saudi women are more comfortable in that kind of an atmosphere. Although I'm a secular American, I have a number of Muslim female acquaintances who prefer to be among only women when in public if they can do so.

[Anony2]

They may be more comfortable there, but if you read the article, you would see that the author was kicked out of the man section. It was mandatory.

[Christine]

This is from a country where heterosexual men hold hands (remember Bush held hands with the Saudi Prince), but can not sit next to a woman.

Starbucks should not be there.

I just don't get it- we go into Iraq to make things better, and Americans complain. We accept the cultural differences and not try to change the world, and Americans complain. Get over it kids!

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

OK! I make my return on this subject. I have read about "embracing diversity" but what does that mean? If we still had counters that said "WHITES ONLY" signs would that be embracing diversity? Well how are we to reconcile that with having separate sections for men and women? I thought "separate but equal" ended years ago? Apparently I was wrong.

Treating everyone with respect and dignity is because we are all created equal, regardless of where we live. The rights and dignity of every human person is because we are all brothers and sisters.

For those of you out there, I do believe we are all equals. We all are born, laugh, cry and in the shadow of life and fade into the dark night.

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[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

Oh yeah, and I suppose when Starbucks opens in India, the "Untouchables" will not be allowed to sit in certain sections too?

[seventysix]

"It is okay to play moral police when defending what is right."

WHOA.

Just because something is morally correct to one person does not make it correct to all people. Everyone has a sense of morality, whether it is spoken or unspoken, well-formed or newly budding. We are all moral in our own sense. Muslim-centric countries such as SA are VERY different than countries like the US, in ways political, economical, and yes, moral.

So... cut the moral police. Everyone. I agree with R, with the topic of women being comfortable. It's known that there are sects of Islam (the main one being the Shiite) that are radically extreme in their views; I'm glad that you are all very equality-based, and I agree with you. But it's a very different situation elsewhere: Starbucks is just establishing itself as the Third Place wherever it exists.

seventysix [76]
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[Harriet]

As earlier poster mention, you should really read the whole article. Saudi Arabia is not a "you do your thing, I'll do mine" place.

The reporter (a blue-eyed, light-haired American woman) is bullied into behaving *exactly* like an observant Muslim woman, from wearing the abaya to avoiding any social contact with men to being forbidden to drive a car.

(And it's made very clear that the men prefer it that way, and in fact, get huffy when a woman is anywhere in their field of vision.)

[R]

And in America, we don't bully people into acting as we think culturally appropriate? I guess it's just okay when we do it, because we do it to both genders. That must make it alright.

[Kat]

"Treating everyone with respect and dignity is because we are all created equal, regardless of where we live. The rights and dignity of every human person is because we are all brothers and sisters."

I agree with Boston Starbucks Rebel. Everyone, regardless of race or gender, is due respect and consideration because we are ALL human beings. This kind of thing may be the norm in that country, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. Unfortunately, when companies like Starbucks go in and allow it to happen in their stores, all they are doing is basically agreeing with it. And I thought Starbucks was better than that.

[Darleen's Filthy Chicken]

BSR... let's not bring up the segregation issue here. You're only alienating the people you want to be friends with.

[exSFbarista]

Allowing women to be treated like second-class citizens and forced into a smaller side room that's curtained off, and telling a woman who ventures into the wrong section that she is not allowed to be there is Just Plain Wrong. Shame on Starbucks for allowing it.

Reasonable people can disagree on a lot of issues, but this is not one that's open to debate. The world business community shunned South Africa for their apartheid policies. The same thing should happen to Saudi Arabia.

[Matteo]

South Africa doesn't have oil.

Saudi Arabia does.

Saudi Arabia is also not a democracy. But Bush is kissing their asses.

So much for spreading freedom and democracy.

We only do it when it suits us or we have something to gain from it.

And "BOSTONSTARBUCKSREBEL" don't even go there.

[Kewpie]

Exactly - multinational businesses in South Africa segregated their facilities by RACE (as in you, white, here and you, black, there). If Starbucks had existed back then or during the Jim Crow South, would you just sit idly by and say, "Oh well, that's how they do it over there."

Starbucks' hypocrisy is appalling here. On the one hand, they quite literally sell their image as a socially responsible company, while across the globe they are willful participants in apartheid.

[mister_barista]

"Embracing diversity" in this case means recognising that not every country has the same cultural norms. Yes, Saudi Arabia is at the far end of that spectrum, and no, not many of us would subscribe to their beliefs or be comfortable living there.

But treating the Saudis with "respect and dignity" is to observe their society's laws and practices, and to abide by them. It would be supremely arrogant to do anything else.

When you go to another country, you don't start instructing people of that country on how to be doing things. I live in the UK, so we don't really tip in Starbucks. When I go to a Starbucks in the US, I accept that this is the accepted norm and tip appropriately. I don't start telling people that baristas shouldn't be subsidised by the customer, and wouldn't have to be if any one of the 50 states had a minimum wage close to that in Britain ($10.60). I wouldn't address the lack of logic in tipping a larger amount for a more expensive drink, given that a higher price in a coffee shop doesn't really reflect a proportionally greater effort to make that drink. I don't do this, I just tip.

[JJ]

Mister, there is a big difference in "cultural differences" and obvious human rights violations being supported by an American company. Starbucks should not set up shop in a place that treats people this way--plain the simple. If they want to run their country like this--where women are treated like trash and gays are executed for being gay on a daily basis then so be it--but Starbucks shouldn't be supporting this. Let them open their own brand of Coffee shops, not use Starbucks as an operation for discrimination. Give me a break on embraceing diversity. I highly doubt this is what they had in mind with "diversity". I think they meant all people--regardless of race, class, religion, sexual orientation, age, language...Starbucks embraces them. Not "Starbucks embraces all discrimination if it's not in America if the country treats people like poo because that's diversity!" No thanks. We shouldn't be there with our brand name.

[mister_barista]

JJ, give me an example of a political issue on which Starbucks has taken a rock-solid stance? They claim to embrace diversity, and in my mind, do that within their stores (for the sake of argument, those stores in North America and Europe). I've never come across Starbucks being accused of, say, discriminating against a partner or prospective employee because they were homosexual. That's a good thing, it demonstrates the company has principles.

But has Starbucks made an outright declaration in support of gay marriage? Should Starbucks refuse to operate stores in states that legislate against two people of the same sex getting married? I'd welcome such a declaration, but it won't happen, and more to the point Starbucks isn't obligated to.

In the same vein, Starbucks is not obligated to be drawing the international community's attention to gender inequality in Saudi Arabia. Nor are they obligated to go there and break Sharia law. But it a leap of logic to say that by proxy, Starbucks is entirely supportive of the Saudi royal family, and is consenting to human rights abuses.

Also, I think it needs to be pointed out, that said human rights abuses against women (let's leave children and foreigners aside) are made with reference to the idea that women have no legal capacity to act on their own behalf. 'Abuses' are not the requirement for women and men to be seperated in Saudi Arabia, this is a part of their culture, and frankly, none of our business. Indeed, while such seperation is only evident in a handful of countries, men and women are seperated in the mosque in all Islamic societies.

I'll repeat my point for clarity: it is not up to Western citizens or corporations to criticise the beliefs, practices or laws of other societies.

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

I want to know why I can't discuss segregation? Isn't telling people where to sit based upon gender, segregation? And yes, there is a basis for "embracing diversity" as one of my DM's put, "Diversity is taking the talents and strengthens of the individual and therefore using them to make Starbucks a stronger company." If one part is damaged, then the whole is in fact damaged. Tolerating cultural differences is simply unacceptable when they violate the dignity of each human person.
The logical fallacy of using time is wrong. Do you tell time by an argument? Then why would you use time to prove your argument? To say we are an enlightened society, is not really true, if there is a second-class and marginalized part of our society who does not partake and enjoy all of our liberties and benefits.
While radical freedom, causes situation of complete alienation. Persons should be allowed to use their freedom in a responsible manner. Perhaps, the ancient Greeks were right with their "virtue theory" that allowed people to enter even the most tempting situations but make the right decision because the other one would seem so abhorrent to them. If men are afraid that a woman might be temptress, then perhaps to paraphrase St. Jerome they need a cold shower of chastity to quench passionate lust.

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Maybe Rosa Parks was not embracing diversity when she decided to sit in the "Whites Only" section of the bus? Or would the sign just have to say "Men Only" for her to be not embracing diversity?

[HopkinsBella]

"But treating the Saudis with "respect and dignity" is to observe their society's laws and practices, and to abide by them. It would be supremely arrogant to do anything else."

Arrogance is our national pasttime, and frankly is also at the root of most of the issues brought up in the items Jim posts about, and the fights people get into around here.

Thank you MISTER_BARISTA, Chris, and R for your opinions. :) It's nice to hear from people who don't adtop stereotypical philosophies around here.

Rant off.

[Christine]

I could go on about gender discrimination, but I won't. This entire issue simply reflects the state of our nation at this point in time. Bush celebrates women voting in Iraq and yet is silent on women being separated in Saudia Arabia. Boston Starbuck Rebel you are so right. Most of the reasoning for women to be covered and separated is because Arab men claim it is tempting. Basically, they can't control themselves. Women have to be separated for protection from men. I wonder why these men even get married if they can't stand the sight of a woman. Basically, most corporations could care less about low wages, discrimination, labor abuse, environmental impact, etc. as long as they keep making more money.

[fiat lux]

One wonders how many of the people who are OK with what Saudi Arabia does are female.

Funny how discrimination is just a little cultural quirk when it doesn't affect you, but a civil rights violation when it does.

[Ed]

I don't see how American arrogance comes into it at all. The idea is that Starbucks has a particular set of core values which is incompatible with the segregation of women, and so therefore they shouldn't participate in the segregation of women. That's not arrogance, that's ethics.

Yes, that's the way they do things in Saudi Arabia. But it's not the way Starbucks does things (at least inasmuch as we can glean from the bumper sticker guides to Starbucks values). So if they want to stick to their principles, they shouldn't do business in Saudi Arabia.

I consider it polite to speak French in cafés in Paris, to tip well in countries that demand it, to kiss cheeks or shake hands as the local customs require. But segregation of women and ethnic minorities is off the table. That means that I put respect for the individual ahead of my respect for cultural diversity.

If Starbucks can be said to believe in anything, it will demonstrate its beliefs by its actions as a corporation and as a brand. Clearly, Starbucks' "values" are compatible with the subjugation of women, no matter what it says in the various partner guides.

[StL Shift]

Bottom line: a market exists for Starbucks in Saudia Arabia, so of course we are there, no matter the differences of opinion, human rights violations, etc.

If there was a market for Starbucks in hell, we'd be there, too.

[Tall Americano]

While it is certainly true that there are cultural differences that vary according to country and region, and these differences should usually be respected, I do not believe that it is never acceptable to judge something as wrong, particularly where individual rights and dignity are concerned. Most people would agree that it was right to condemn South Africa for apartheid, so frankly I do not see how this is any different. As a customer, I was disappointed to hear this story and I believe that this damages the *$ brand.

[Jim Lane]

Here's the real point I think everyone is missing because you are not getting back to the basics - what the hell was she doing taking an assignment in a place where she did not understand the rules of the road? Had she been any reporter worth the moniker, she would have known about the general situation before she ever set foot in the country.

I also find a lot of you advocating a double standard - pity.

And for the rest of you who are saying that Starbucks should not be here or there in different countries, then the same rule should apply for ALL US companies, not just Starbucks. Now consider the impact of that silliness.

This will not affect Sttarbuck's brand any more than it affects any other multinational's brand(s). Get a grip, folks, and use a brain instead of rampant emotionalism.

I am a woman. More over I am a woman in the military and I expect respect and fair rules for all. That said I will say that many devout Muslim women get offended if they are forced to share seating/sections with men. They also get offended if governments, like France, do not allow them the personal FREEDOM to wear an hijab. I'm sure some women are angry about separate areas, but in that culture many more are angry about being forced into western lifestyles. When in Rome...

[Indie2]

Starbucks is a Western-based store, supporting Western values. Expanding this company to nations such as Saudi Arabia can only be beneficial, as Starbucks is unlikely to bow to the values of one, closed-minded culture. If anything, this is a beneficial step in the movement of changing an old-world practice.

[barista]

The western reporter was too quick to read sexism into a foreign practice. The same can be said of many naive albeit well-intentioned contributors on this thread. Separating sexes doesn't entail sexism. Indeed, when public sexual separation is understood from within the perspective of this culture rather than through an inapplicable Western perspective, this sexual separation is in at least one dimension conventional protection of female dignity, not an insult. We take for granted the degree of freedom in sexual customs in the West due to the strong rule of law that enables such freedom. Not so everywhere else.

Where the rule of law has been historically weaker, different cultural conventions arise to preserve social order and security. Some of these practices deal with sex since sex is major potential cause of social chaos. The practice of public sexual separation ensures men aren't tempted to abuse women. It, in principle at least, ensures women can be out without worrying about abuse from men. This practice is taken for granted in various sexually modest cultures of the world. It's appreciated as much by women as by men since it alleviates certain sexual dangers and inconveniences of being in public.

It's not how we do it in the West. Then again, life is different in the West than in the East. So the East does things differently. This isn’t saying misogyny and all the bad things this reporter aren’t an element of other cultures. It’s just that misogyny isn’t an effective snap explanation for every difference between Western and Eastern sexual culture. If the bartender looked at the lady funny, it’s because she didn’t understand the standards of modesty he took for granted.

It’s as if a foreign female from a sexually liberal country walked into a US department store and started changing in the men’s dressing room. “Sorry, Miss,” the clerk would say with a benign but bemused smirk to the unwitting tourist. “What are you doing? I assume you mean no harm. But that’s not how things work. What’re you’re doing won’t fly with all our customers. Even if it’s OK with some, that’s just not how we do it around here. You need to change in the women’s dressing room.”

Now this fictional female reporter could assume Americans are backwards, medieval, and women hating to degrade women by forcing them to change separate from the men. Insulting! But then, we Americans understand that this foreign reporter would be reading their own prejudices about American prejudice into a convention Americans take for granted but which nonetheless has sexually benign and valid reasons for existing: public sexual separation of men and women’s changing spaces.

The same principle at work in this hypothetical applies to the actual case of this naïve but well-intentioned reporters encounter with non-Western sexual customs for coffee bars. It also applies to the encounter of many Westerners with her story. Anyway, I think it’s good for people to recognize this mistake. That Starbucks allows different countries to preserve such cultural practices doesn’t show that Starbucks apologizes for Middle Eastern misogyny in contradiction of their corporate values of “respect and dignity”. Rather, it shows Starbucks accords respect and dignity to the cultures it does business with. It understands those cultures on their own terms, not on the terms of the West.

This isn't to say all morality is culturally relative. But it's to say that cultural meanings are culturally relative. And relative to a Western mindset, the meaning of foreign sexual practices are easy to misconstrue as negative to women when in fact their meaning within their original culture is more neutral, even positive.

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

I had a lot of time to think about what I said and perhaps some of my comments could be misinterpreted as offensive, but that is coming from a Western mindset maybe?

After all they could be, "And relative to a Western mindset, the meaning of foreign sexual practices are easy to misconstrue as negative."

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[Christine]

Barista, it amazes me that people always make exception to women's discrimination, but if it is racial, religious or age people are up in arms. Your point is that it is acceptable to segregate based on gender for women's safety. If women are in such danger no cultural or religious alibis can justify such behavior of men. The excuse that we do not understand their culture is nonsense. You act as if women in the west have a gift to not be living in such a separated culture, but that is the ideal and a human right. It is well known that men of other cultures that work or visit the west still discriminate and assault western women even though they are in western country. (http://parisparfait.typepad.com/paris_parfait/2007/05/this_morning_i_.html)
Mukhtar Mai (working to protect women in Pakistan)
If a western woman should respect middle-eastern cultural practices so should a man from a foreign country respect the laws and rights of women in the west. Do you justify the stoning of that Iraqi young women in the news recently? How about revenge rape for something a male family member did? It is nice to gloss over these issues, but the reality is women’s lives deserve more respect. We are all humans from the planet earth and no one should be separated as if we were animals that simply can not cohabitate in public.

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

Hey Christine,
Thank you for saying all those things which I did not want to say because I know I would be stoned here to if I spoke up my mind. I believe, that men and women should be treated equally under the law. The belief that "separate but equal" is absolutely erroneousness, regardless of the time or place. The dignity and respect for each person does not simply change because of "cultural" differences. I'll say that, so what if Hitler thought killing Jews was wrong, 6 million dead cannot be wrong because after all they are inferior and the Nazi way of life is right. The totalitarian way of life imposed by Nazis and the Saudis government is unacceptable. And BTW, the Nazis were in the West in all of you forgot that point.
The oppression and exploitation of innocent persons is simply reprehensible. In fact, to treat half of your society as second-class citizens is unthinkable, but it happens everyday throughout the world.
Each human person deserves basic human rights.

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[LIVE FREE OR DIE]

Praise Allah and death to the infidel! Sorry, I meant Amen! Alleluia!

[Kat]

Christine, you say exactly how I feel. I don't feel I 'need' to open my thoughts, heart, whatever and accept anything in regard to this. Women in those countries are treated like second rate citizens, and Starbucks being there, allowing such things to happen in their own store, only makes it seem like we approve or at least are willing to turn a blind eye. But hey, it's all about the buck isn't it?

Frankly I'm sick and tired of it being 'ok' when women are somehow held back, discriminated, dominated, what have you. If this were happening to some other group, people would be far more upset. But it's just women, and well you know, we're such damned temptresses men have to keep us under a tight fist.

Women are human beings too, just like men, and deserve the same respect as them. We may not have the right to tell them how to live their lives, but we certainly don't have to go over there in help promote it.

[Kearns]

Last time I checked there were separate bathrooms for men and women in Starbucks in America. Is that apartied? Or is that separate because it makes people more comfortable? Before you rant off and try to force American cultural norms on women in Saudia Arabia, check with those women and see how they feel.

Personally I have been there. Personally I am Muslim. Personally I don't necessarily agree with their sepration, and it certainly didn't make me feel comfortable, but I'm not vain enough to think I know better, and that there is even an issue there.

And with the world in the state that it is, I'd think that I'd rather see Starbucks wield its Corporate strength to end hunger in the world, or genocide, or something everyone can get behind, and not worry about the culture of a tiny country that we just may not understand.

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

Actually, many stores where I live have only one bathroom for both men and women because there is not enough space to accommodate two separate bathrooms. The reason why there are two separate bathrooms is not because men can't keep it in their pants.