Naive me… I had assumed Starbucks – with its high-minded CEO who has received an award for “ethics in business” from Notre Dame and its general do-gooder, post-hippie ethos – was on the more progressive side of corporations and that they would never (heaven forfend!) engage in practices like segregation.
Yet they do. Sexual segregation. According to a fascinating front page article in the LAT today by Megan Stack, the Starbucks in Saudi Arabia have a small women’s only section accessed through a back door. The full bore Starbucks that we all know and sort of love is for men only. And Stack knows of what she speaks. She spent months walking around that medieval center of psychopathic misogyny in a black abaya.
Evidently other American fast food joints are in Saudi Arabia (I think I knew that), obeying the misogynistic Sharia laws, as are some of our hotel chains. Pretty bad… but Starbucks? Hath they no shame?
I guess the argument is they are subverting the system from within (remember Google and Yahoo in China) but reading Ms. Stack’s article I think they are just giving the Saudis another venue for expressing their sick Wahhabi value system. Actually, Starbucks and the others are enabling the system by allowing one half of Saudi society to live modern or semi-modern lives while treating the other half like chattel.
Time for Starbucks to pack up its frapuccinos and get out. Time for the rest of us to stop drinking the oil of these creepy potentates.
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26 Comments
1. blinkNoodle:A window that appears after selecting “International” on the Starbucks site lists various countries–but not Saudi Arabia. I submitted a question via e-mail concerning your story. I’ll let you know if I get anything other than a canned response.
Jun 6, 2007 - 6:24 pm 2. Richard Nieporent:Starbuck’s does business in Saudi Arabia? Don’t they know that the company is owned by Howard Schultz who is Jewish? I thought that they refused to do business with Jewish owned companies.
Jun 6, 2007 - 6:53 pm 3. Kevin:The MAC store in Qatar has a back room where the women go to try on the makeup.
Qatar doesn’t segregate as much as Saudi and I didn’t notice a women only room at starbucks, and I know they don’t exist in Bahrain.
Most american style restaurants (chili’s, johnny carinos, TGIF etc) in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar have family sections – booths with curtains so the woman can unveil and eat.
Jun 6, 2007 - 7:45 pm 4. promoguy:“Time for Starbucks to pack up its frapuccinos and get out.”
Roger you are such a silly ninny poo. At the cost of a double machiano frapucicino latte with double cream and a shot of caramel for probably $14.00 US in that country, they’d probably allow a stoning on the sidewalk in front.
Jun 6, 2007 - 9:37 pm 5. Dick Stanley:First you have to get all the hands of the American politicians out of the Saudi pockets, then we might be able to buy the oil we get from them from somewhere else.
Jun 6, 2007 - 9:58 pm 6. Lefty:Starbucks has a recycle bin and I’m sure Mr. Schultz has pontificated on the dangers of global warming, he is thus absolved of all others sins.
Jun 6, 2007 - 11:51 pm 7. Lefty:Starbucks has a recycle bin and I’m sure Mr. Schultz has pontificated on the dangers of global warming, he is thus absolved of all others sins.
Jun 6, 2007 - 11:52 pm 8. Eric Akawie:I’m surprised Starbucks has a presence in the KSA, when I’m sure Caribou Coffee would be more than happy to expand there.
From Snopes.com:
(The rest of the page is mostly apologetics)
Jun 7, 2007 - 5:36 am 9. photoncourier.blogspot.com:“Time for the rest of us to stop drinking the oil of these creepy potentates”..from yesterday’s FT: OPEC is threatening to cut investment in future oil production because of the West’s investment in biofuels. The official said that biofuels will not be viable in the medium term because of competition with food supply, and the cuts in OPEC investment will mean that we will have neither the oil nor the ethanol.
If he really thought the biofuels weren’t going to be viable, he would be less worried about competition from them.
Jun 7, 2007 - 7:01 am 10. Lem:Point well taken Roger. However there are businesses here in the good old USA that discriminates on the basis of sex.
According to Wikipedia as of May 2007 no woman has ever been a member of Augusta National, though women are able to play the course as guests of a member.
Arguments can be made as to the difference btw a private club and a business like Starbucks. My point is, when it comes to sexual discrimination there are no ‘clean hands’ out there.
OH NOooo. I just had a flash of a certain supreme court justice at his confirmation hearing beign asked about a can of coke
Jun 7, 2007 - 7:43 am 11. Anthony (Los Angeles):Arguments can be made as to the difference btw a private club and a business like Starbucks. My point is, when it comes to sexual discrimination there are no ‘clean hands’ out there.
To draw equivalence between the benighted actions of a private club and the policy of an entire nation and religion is risible. Both are deplorable, both are deserving of criticism, but the latter is far, far worse, and the comparison to Augusta just trivializes it.
Jun 7, 2007 - 9:16 am 12. Lem:Anthony
The main thrust of Roger’s ire seems to be directed at Starbucks clean, do good, green image on the one hand, with their seemingly acquiescence to Saudi misogyny on the other. Not Saudi misogyny per say.
So I thought I point out that Starbucks is not alone. I wouldn’t characterize not allowing woman as members of a club like Augusta National, here is US soil, trivial. In my view, It’s just plain wrong.
Jun 7, 2007 - 11:37 am 13. Lem:BTW
Jun 7, 2007 - 12:04 pm 14. Dan Panorama:I don’t quite understand the complaint. It’s Starbucks’ job to take on Saudi culture? Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women is hideous but I’ve heard of no movement among businesses to not deal with them or to refuse to divide along gender lines on the basis of issues like this. Starbucks is a business, a progressive minded one, yes, but still a business, and on the grand scale of things its weird to single them out among everyone who does business. Also Starbucks primary causes have been health care and fair trade, right? It might be hypocritical if they supported employer-based health care and then denied their employees health care in some country, but using “progressive” as some blanket statement for whatever policy you want to glom onto to make them look bad is a stretch.
Jun 7, 2007 - 12:12 pm 15. Bruce Wechsler:I think Starbucks was singled out here both because it is a significant topic in the editorial and because of its “let’s ALL hang together in the cafe” persona that it markets itself as.
Dan wrote: “Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women is hideous but I’ve heard of no movement among businesses to not deal with them”.
I suspect Roger’s underlying point is that there should be (or it sure would be really nice if there were) such a movement; and Starbuck’s may just be a high optics way to start it off.
Jun 7, 2007 - 12:57 pm 16. Lem:The Catholic Church notwithstanding, I believe the ascension of woman as equals with men, more than any other principle (perhaps only 2nd to deterrence) has served to make people more civilized.
Starbucks should know better.
Jun 7, 2007 - 1:10 pm 17. Luther McLeod:When I think of Starbucks, which is rarely, I think progressive. Whether Bruce W.’s point re Roger is correct or not, the ‘high optics’ start is a good idea. Though in actuality I have no idea how Starbucks could effect much change in SA. It seems too me they would just be asked to leave.
Jun 7, 2007 - 2:10 pm 18. Bruce Wechsler:My point (and I’m only guessing at Rogers, admittedly) is that SB should leave SA. Political/economic reality, unfortunately, is that we as a nation are still too hooked on the Saudi Soda to actually treat SA with the lack of respect they deserve for their incivility to women. So the U.S. government can’t do much (I don’t think it needs to kiss Saudi posterior as much as it does, but that’s another story), but we as consumers may be able to make some difference if we help convince businesses “not to go there”. The rich Saudi men do love their Western stuff; make it harder for them to get is all I’m saying.
I also think that without some of her negative comments about Western, or Western-educated, men in the article (i.e. her tally of those “who seemed to condone, even relish, the relegation of women in the Arab world”, and her “liberal, U.S.-educated professor” who did not get as outraged as she would have liked after her ill-treatment outside the bank), this article would not have seen the light of day in the LA Times. It’s only OK to knock the Saudi repression if we also blame the U.S. for something. I hope I’m wrong, but it is the L.A. Times.
BW
Jun 7, 2007 - 3:18 pm 19. tioedong:(hey there, Luther!)
It’s worse than that. About 25% of those living in Saudi Arabia are foreigners who have even less rights.
Jun 7, 2007 - 4:12 pm 20. Luther McLeod:The estimated one million Catholics don’t have a church there, and that number doesn’t include protestants, Hindus, animists, and local Shiite Arabs who live in the eastern part of Saudi who have no freedom of worship.
SB leaving would be a good idea, but then they would be replaced by someone else, whether American or other. Kind o’ like us not buying oil from SA, someone else will. Some problems seem almost intractable.
I was puzzled by the article as well, there never seemed too be a point to it, especially with the last sentence:
“I take the abaya off, expecting to feel liberated. But somehow, it always feels like defeat.”
Now WTH does that mean? That ‘resistance is futile’, that she faces worse back home, that she was unable to make any headway in changing the reality on the ground? I dunno.
Hello yourself Bruce, long time no read.
Jun 7, 2007 - 5:07 pm 21. heather:there are plenty of reasons to despise the Saudis, even ignoring the fact that their money is funding most of the global war on terror.
remember the big move to force South Africa to stop its apartheid? Alls the excitement, all the marches, all the placards, all the boycotts???
Starbucks (and any other retailer who sets up shop in SA) should feel a lot of heat in North America.
Now. Where are all the lefty Seattle lovers of human freedom in all this? Gosh. Silence. It really isn’t our business, is it?
Jun 7, 2007 - 6:03 pm 22. Luther McLeod:Yeah Heather, the hypocrisy is rife.
“Where are all the lefty Seattle lovers of human freedom in all this”
Starbuck’s of course. Having really heated conversations.
Jun 7, 2007 - 6:43 pm 23. Bad Cat Robot:I recall that a number of US corporations did business in apartheid South Africa, obeying the noxious laws but subverting the intent by training, hiring, and supporting their local black employees in a way that would never happen in a South African company. It would be nice to see Starbucks, if they insist on having a corporate presence in Saudi Arabia, do something like that. Perhaps make all the clever quotes on the paper cups be from uppity, opinionated women? Or make the men use the little tiny section of the store and the big nice fancy section be the “women’s only” part? I’m sure if they really put their minds to it there is something useful they could do.
Jun 7, 2007 - 8:26 pm 24. ricpic:“Time for…us to stop drinking the oil of these creepy potentates.”
You can thank the progressives here, with their don’t drill here drill, that we’re drinking from the wells there.
Jun 8, 2007 - 8:13 am 25. Bruce Wechsler:Heather: “Where are all the lefty Seattle lovers of human freedom in all this”
Luther: “Starbuck’s of course. Having really heated conversations.”
…about the ‘00 “election”
……………….
To ricpic’s point, but beyond it, we can’t just blame the “progressives” for the situation we’re in. I was an adolescent during the long gas lines of the Carter days. That alternative, abundant and healthier fuels have not been highly developed and become commonplace since those days is one of this generation’s greatest failures so far. Imagine how different the entire geopolitical deck of cards would be if we were essentially self-sufficient on energy? It really irks me to think that we’ve got a perfectly good and vibrant sun pissing all kinds of energy on us every day, and we have not found a decent way to capture it.
Jun 8, 2007 - 11:02 am 26. Southernops:I rather swill “Taster’s Choice” than gag on a cup of joe from Starbucks. Only idiots pay “Starbucks prices” for a cup of coffee. They’re right at home in SA.
Jun 9, 2007 - 7:31 am