Bizarre, International, Religion, Society

The Vanishing Woman: Saudi Arabian Ad Substitutes Image Of Inflatable Ball For Mother In Pool Picture

4131F54200000578-4580510-image-m-34_1496835530873We have previously discussed how woman magically disappear in Saudi Arabia, including  ads for companies like IKEA. (We have seen the same vanishing in Orthodox Jewish publication).  Now Saudi Arabia is accused of replacing a picture of a mother with a beach ball in this advertisement to protect Muslim sensibilities.  At least these kids can say “Mom was a real ball on vacation.”

4131FEFD00000578-4580510-image-m-33_1496835512921The picture is for a pool sold by the company SACO which originally featured a family lounging in a swimming pool. However, for Saudi shoppers the mother of the family is magically converted into an inflatable ball.

It is a fitting substitution since an inflatable ball has about as many rights as a woman under the Saudi Sharia law system.

 

53 thoughts on “The Vanishing Woman: Saudi Arabian Ad Substitutes Image Of Inflatable Ball For Mother In Pool Picture”

  1. At the headquarters for world terrorism financial support there are many delicate sensibilities. Delicate enough to hope to convert you, to enslave you, or to kill you.

    1. Yes, but there is a difference between the religion of Islam, and strict sexual mores. Many societies, including our own, used to have such restrictions. And I think there were good reasons for doing so. Plus, there are still many religious groups today which have strictly defined sexual roles such as the Amish and the Mennonites. Mennonite women seem pretty happy and fulfilled to me.

      Squeeky Fromm
      Girl Reporter

  2. I think DDS has the better of the arguments here. The pro-near nudity side can’t seem to rise above “but…but…but…Saudi Arabia doesn’t accept as customs as being superior to theirs!”

    Which to me, why should they??? The West is a horrible example of how freedom ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Our syphilis rates and STDs are going up. We are at least $20 Trillion in debt (more like $60 to $100 Trillion) because we have to take care of irresponsible women’s illegitimate little heathens. Half the country is on some kind of anti-depressant or illegal drugs. And after all that, a large percentage of women are still profoundly unhappy.

    And like DDS said, the Saudi’s sexual standards are not much more stringent than the average American’s was in the early 1900s. I am not all sure that we “have come a long way, baby.” But we do have one new gender that I agree about – – – the pornosexual!

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/07/rise-pornosexual-increasing-numbers-shun-sex-real-people/

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  5. Oh the juxtaposition of it all.

    – Saudi Arabia vigorously preserves women to perpetuate its population.

    – America has an antithetical and unconstitutional 19th Amendment producing

    incoherence, hysteria and a birthrate in a “death spiral.”

    – Saudi Arabia has a mortal enemy in Iran which has twice the population.

    – In 100 years, there won’t be an American left in America.

    – Saudi Arabia secures women for the purpose God or nature assigned them.

    – America has women who are true misogynists as they reject nature’s role for women

    and incomprehensibly, those women are artificially promoted through

    affirmative action to be super-equal, indeed, factitiously superior.
    ___________________________________________

    Saudi Arabians and Americans should close the deal by splitting the difference.

    Take Saudi women out of the Middle Ages and make them free.

    Take American women off of the artifice of affirmative action with super-equality

    by ending unconstitutional affirmative action and make them free.

    In Saudi Arabia and America:

    Let freedom ring!

    Let merit ring!

  6. Late to the party, but it seems to be a matter of religious modesty and, if that’s their standard, isn’t that up to them? As a western woman I don’t really get it, but as I understand from the Saudi men and women I have known, modesty in conservative Islam is pretty important, for men and women. This is similar for conservative Jews and Christians, as well. I would also just add a word of caution against infantilizing Saudi women. If they want our opinion about their “oppression,” they will ask.

  7. Speaking of Saudi Arabia, did you hear about the players and fans of its soccer team who refused to honor a minute’s silence for the victims of the London Bridge attack?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4584294/Saudi-soccer-team-refuse-stand-London-victims.html
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4584844/Saudi-Arabia-reason-minute-silence-refusal-lie.html

    “They did not stop for a moment of silence because according to Wahhabi Islam — which governs Saudi Arabia — it is not wrong or a sin for a Muslim to kill a non-Muslim,” said Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi.

    “In their eyes the attackers are martyrs who are going to paradise. And if they stand for a minute of silence they are against their Muslim brothers who fought for jihad and fought the infidels,” he continued.

    1. Here is what they were singing:

      (music)
      And London Bridge has fallen down…
      And moved to Ari Zona and
      I know why!

      I”ll substantiate the rumor that the English sense of humor is…
      Drier than the Texas sand…
      And if you’re from down South and you open your mouth..
      You always put your Saudi foot there!

      I wanna go home to the armadilla…
      Good country music and amarilla in Aberdine.
      Its the prettiest women and the uglies ballies you’ve ever seen.

  8. And they support freedom of the press just as they support women’s rights. They are against the terrists and everything!! No wonder Trump was all over the glowing orb and did the sword dance!

    “The Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage issued a circular in the early hours of Friday, ordering all “tourist facilities” to remove satellite channels that include religious, political or moral violations, including the Al Jazeera Media Network.

    The circular read: “All tourist facilities must commit to choosing the appropriate TV channels in line with the official Saudi TV channels … and not to operate channels deviant to the Islamic religion or the state’s policies, or morals.”

    It added: “The authority ensures the importance of removing all the ‘Al Jazeera channels’ from the list of available channels in rooms and other tourism accommodation facilities in order to prevent anyone who violates this circular from facing penalties, which could amount to 100,000 Saudi riyals ($26,600) or the revocation of their license, or both.”

    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/06/qatar-diplomatic-crisis-latest-updates-170605105550769.html#Friday

  9. She got balled in an above ground pool with her family present and it all happened in Saudi Arabia.

    1. Jack,

      You of all people, I hate to correct 🔫. Also, how do I say this without coming off all “PC” which I am not….not no but he’ll no!

      Rather my point lends itself to the changing times.

      Here we go. As a Pool & Spa contractor, 30th years this month, the term Above Ground pool is passe and out. Sorry.
      Are you ready? It is now an “ON THE GROUND POOL”. My guess is they were concerned about the limited markets of mobile home, trailer park, trailer trash folks and the like. Sorry again. I meant to say “manufactured homes”. Now they can appeal to a much broader segment of folks that actually have homes without tie downs.

      Just trying to help.

      1. I went on Cloud 9 and there is a Saudi prince on the internet saying this: “Ball em if ya got em. Pork em in the pool. Below ground is ultra sound. One pop is good for the whole day.”

  10. They’re selling above ground pools to a Saudi market where people have different tastes and sensibilities. The father and the three children are also more modestly outfitted. My suggestion to you is that if you don’t care for Saudi standards of modesty stay the #$(* out of Saudi Arabia.

    1. How can sensibilities be respected when half of the Saudi population is coerced into a life of inequity on the most basis of human standards?
      Your constant support for commerce and sovereign control, regardless of the agent’s reprehensible moral standing is quite telling.

      1. Saudi sensibilities are not much different in regard to what’s in this ad than those prevailing in the late Victorian period, which had a different set of social regulations which demarcated men’s lives from women’s lives.

        The one notable difference from the Victorian period is that the niqab is the preferred form of dress for adult women in public places in Saudi Arabia, but that preference is favored by about 3/4 of the Saudi public per survey research conducted by Pew. Only 3% of respondents favored western dress.

        life of inequity on the most basis of human standards?

        It’s hard to tell what’s meant by this confused sentence fragment. You appear to fancy Turley’s prejudices, which are one might wager midwestern American suburb ca. 1977, are ‘human standards’ applicable everywhere. They are not.

      2. Hi Roscoe, I must tell you that, after living 3 years in KSA and speaking everyday to men AND women, this sense of coercion is most of the times a false perception of our Western life-style and culture. I think we should stop trying to understand which culture is right and which is wrong. Saudis are much happier and free than what some wants us to believe. Their path to a change, if any, would be owned by themselves and can not be imposed from outside.

  11. Did that man have those children by himself? This is the country with which we are aligned in the Middle East! This is the country that feigns friendship while funding and
    Fomenting terrorism.

    Theocracy is dangerous to all humans but the threat it poses to women is insidious and corrosive.

    1. Theocracy is dangerous to all humans but the threat it poses to women is insidious and corrosive.

      This is an idiot non sequitur.

      1. How can Muslim, especially Wahhabi style sensibilities be considered to be anything other than barbaric mechanisms of control?

        There is no equanimity inherent for each human belonging to that religion.

        So how can a concept like being sensitive to aesthetic influences be rationally or morally respected if only to maintain the oppressors standing?

        1. How can Muslim, especially Wahhabi style sensibilities be considered to be anything other than barbaric mechanisms of control?

          My suggestion to a normal human being would be that they undertake a broad survey of the Muslim world and then a comparative survey of how various sorts of societies have handled division of labor and the social delineations necessary to maintain family life. Since you’re not actually devoting any thought to the question (and perhaps cannot), I have no suggestions for you.

  15. Why are Saudi men so insecure about their own self-worth that they are driven to suppress and control women? Maybe because Arabs have for so long been dominated militarily by Europeans and the US. They would probably be happier if they reveled in their own intellect, creativity, and diligence rather than investing so much energy in suppressing women.

    1. Their oppression of women has nothing to do with Europeans or Americans. It has been going on for centuries.

    2. Is this Maxine Water’s analogy?
      The terrorist are caused by climate change?
      The terrorist are caused by the QURAN
      And so is the degragation of women.
      Doesn’t anybody read anymore?

    3. Maybe because Arabs have for so long been dominated militarily by Europeans and the US.

      Saudi Arabia has never been a dependency of any European power and customs regarding human relations antedate the establishment of any European colonies or protectorates in the Arab world.

    4. It really is a neurotic obsession with females – what they are doing, what they are thinking, saying, dressing, etc.

      My favorite breed of horse, the Arabian, was born in the cradle of the Middle East. The Bedouins used the mares as war mares because they would not trumpet out a challenge to the enemy’s herd the way a stallion would. But, they savagely protected their bloodlines, which could be recited for hundreds of years back in any horse’s pedigree. So they would sew the mares’ vulva shut before every foray. And they arguably loved their mares more than their women, allowing their most treasured mare to sleep in the man’s tent with him the way none of his wives were allowed to maintain a permanent residence. They were on a rotation of visitation instead.

      1. It really is a neurotic obsession with females – what they are doing, what they are thinking, saying, dressing, etc.

        Why are you employing psychoanalytic terms?

        An aspect of law and custom in Saudi Arabia is to segregate men and women who are not proximate relatives. There are customs which promote such segregation (to a degree) as far afield as Malaysia. I doubt it’s typical in Saudi Arabia today to sequester women as thoroughly as Mrs. al-Jawad in Neguib Mahfouz Cairo Trilogy (she left the house once in 25 years).

        Women in Saudi Arabia are literate (92% are among those over 15, and nearly all between 15 and 25). Nearly all receive some secondary schooling and the majority enrolled in tertiary schooling is female.. They are passably healthy (the life expectancy at birth is 76, a level not reached in the United States until about 35 years ago). However, only about 20% of adult women resident have workaday jobs. (I think it’s lower among Saudi citizens – lots of expats in SA).

        As noted, women in Saudi Arabia are ambivalent about altering the customs of daily life which Turley keeps harping on, the dress codes notably among them.

  16. Another use of ‘woman’ in propaganda film;

    “Wonder Woman and the Trump administration”

    Gal Gadot, who plays Diana in Wonder Woman, has recently come out and said:

    “Wonder Woman is a feminist, of course. I think people have a misconception about what feminism is. People think hairy armpits and women who burn bras and hate men. That’s not it. For me, feminism is all about equality and freedom and [women] choosing what we want to do. If it’s salaries, then we get paid equal to men. It’s not men vs. women or women vs. men.”

    Interesting, isn’t it? Gadot used to serve in the Israeli military, and she would never tell the Israelis that they need to stop oppressing Palestinian men, women and children. She knows very well that the Palestinians have no equal rights in Israel.[1] Migrant workers, for example, have been treated like animals in the region.[2] Sometimes they work “at 25% below the minimum wage, without medical or social benefits, and without any work permit whatsoever.”

    http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/06/08/wonder-woman-and-the-trump-administration/

    https://youtu.be/B85dF_1Hdj8

    1. This is a sad video but divorced of that, and knowing the whole story, the Palestinians are complaining to the world that Israel is able to hold it’s own, that they have superior killing powers. You have to admit that they kill as much as they are able.

      1. Christine, he’s one of the two waste-of-space anti-Semites who post here. It’s not offered in good faith.

          1. JEWS UNITED AGAINST ZIONISM

            Zionism is the Real Enemy of the Jews

            Judaism Rejects Zionism and the state of Israel. Anti-Zionism / Anti-Israel are not Anti-Semitism. Zionism is not Judaism. All Zionists are not Jews.

            Zionists are trying to conflate Israel, Zionism, Jews, Judaism and Anti-Semitism. Real Jews are not Zionists, they reject Zionism and are our brothers in this struggle.

            http://buenavistamall.com/denounceisrael.jpg

            https://t.co/WTdHlnCYE4

    2. Why do you have to assault decent people with your wretched case of the Jew thing?

  17. intex really tried to use that ad in Saudi Arabia? It’s a cheaply made shoddy product anyway.

  18. Hmmm. Sooo, to me there looks there is an erect penis about 7:00 under the ball in the water. Or am I just seeing things??? OMG!!!, my biological clock isn’t ticking is it???

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  19. Right. This reminds me of all the times people have tried to claim that women are revered under Islam.

    This deflates the entire premise of cultural relativism. There are certainly interesting aspects of Middle Eastern culture and architecture, but the treatment of women there is appalling, especially in Saudi Arabia.

    1. Karen, it’s an advertisement meant to appeal to Saudi customers, who have disgust reactions to certain quanta of exposed flesh. My great-great grandmother shlepped around in dresses down to her ankles. She was also president of the family business after her husband died. I doubt her employees treated her like chattel.

      1. It’s not just the covered skin. It’s the fact that the mother cannot be seen in the pool at all. It’s the inescapable fact of how women are treated in Saudi Arabia. They cannot speak to an unrelated male unless he’s her chauffeur, she may not leave the country without her male relative’s permission, she may be drowned in the family pool to restore “honor”, she may literally be sentenced to the “women’s room” in solitary confinement in her home for the rest of her days if her male relatives decree, and then there is the plight of the Saudi Princesses, in house arrest for how many years now? 7?

        It’s not that the women and men have more modest styles of dress, but otherwise are both treated equally.

        This ad appeals to the sensibilities of a culture that treats and abuses women very close to slaves. The government of Saudi Arabia is rather extremist, in my view.

        And we are all free to condemn or defend it, wherever our moral compass points.

        1. No, she’s not depicted.

          Karen, there are customary restrictions on unrelated men and women spending time alone in Malaysia, in many respects a liberal country. Recall that the patriarch al-Jawad in the Cairo Trilogy goes ballistic when he discovers that his son has caught sight of his neighbors’ fully clothed daughter doing laundry – that’s bourgeois Egypt in 1919. There are reasons for that. The question is, what’s your alternative to the purposes served by social customs like that?

          You LIVE in a country wherein there are 700,000 contraceptive abortions a year, a five or six digit young women earn a living pole dancing or hooking, and 40% of the children are born out of wedlock. That’s what happens when modesty, purity, and putting Chesterton’s fence between men and women goes out the window. Turley’s assiduously avoided looking at the world all around him in metro Washington.

      2. How is everyone here so lame and missing the real issue and points(s)?

        Going off on so many tangents and all….

        Focus people..focus!

        The real point at issue and I might add, of paramount importance is….the BALL!

        THE BEACH BALL. Where can we get them and if we can will it do that?

  20. I notice those shown, the father and children, are dressed in black to the neck, in a big fake pool. And then the beach ball mother.

    KSA, among our very best friends.

    1. Explain to me how certain standards of modesty in daily life make Saudi Arabia ‘unfriendly’ in the international sphere?

      1. Don’t make me laugh too hard, now. 50 years ago, the last child (unless he had more) of old Faisal was at school with me in Switzerland. Haifa, born to the 8th wife, iirc.. A very reserved, not especially attractive 15 year old. She dressed conservatively, but indeed wore Western clothing. Skirts barely below the knee. She was very quiet but she clearly acceded, obviously with familial permission, to the superficial mores of the West. Why? Because we were dominate.

        Later in lfie she was married off to Bandar [Bush] and not much seen again, I have one photo of her at a huge party at the huge house in Aspen. Rubies the size of small eggs around her neck…

        Today in the public schools in San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Jose, East Bay… there are 7 year old girls, all wrapped up. Hairline to ankle bone.

        The spread of such idiocy is very bad news for women, for gays and above all else, for children.

        Now, anyone who wants to take up the key board as a scourge to relentlessly defend the Kingdom or the House of Saud, be my guest. It’s a dirty job, but there will always be volunteers. I will never respond to you again as long as I drop in on this site.

        1. I’m not your therapist and not paid to listen to you free-associate.

          Do you have an answer to my question or don’t you?

          1. 👏 I do! 👏

            Great answer.

            Thank you. Like they expect to see thong bikinis at the pool at Bob Jones or Oral Roberts U.

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