How do women square holidaying in Dubai with the lived reality of UAE women?

[Bouncealot]

Never understood a friend raving about the luxury, lack of crime, cleanliness, attentiveness of hotel and retail staff, when I had watched documentaries on slave labour, especially Philippine and Pakistani people denied passports, sleeping on kitchen floors and UAEs refusal to give stats on FGM to WHO. Just listened to Woman’s Hour discussion on the Princess Latifa case. It seems not a subject for discussion when people are planning ‘sunshine breaks’.
IABU judge other women’s holiday choices and experiences?

Its all built on slavery and yes you should judge people who endorse going there. We could have the same society in the UK overnight if we were prepared to have slaves and strip people of their human rights and dignity. Its not an achievement to go somewhere built by slaves and claim its a superior place to the UK.

Same way so many posters on here square living there, I suppose- they like the money, they live a privileged existence compared to citizens and many migrant labourers, they never have to witness the suffering and can tell themselves it can't be that bad. Basically comes down to them prioritising financial gain and the lifestyle that goes with it.

Absolutely agree with you.

It's just Saudi by the sea and I can't see many people rushing to holiday in Saudi.

Dangerous place if you're a woman, a worker or a (female) member of the ruling family.

Pre 9/11 I met a woman on a course who hosted dinner parties for members of the Taliban (her DP worked for a high profile charity at the time). I asked her how she felt about women being stoned to death in football stadiums for reading books and wearing make up. She walked away. No one backed me up. I feel like a lone voice on such matters that I only raise my head once in a blue moon!

Because they're thick.

And for the likes on Instagram.

I will never holiday there for the reasons you raised. I've talked to a few Dubai fans in the past and to be blunt they're generally in the bling / hard of thinking camp.

Let's be honest, the majority of these influencers and celebs aren't exactly sharp, are they? Just a bit thick. I can't believe in this day and age that the generation below me is as stupid as they act all over social media. It is utterly depressing.

I agree OP. I just don't get how people can turn a blind eye to it. But then people do it with all sorts of things - "animal lovers" eating meat being the obvious one; it's cognitive dissonance I suppose.

Absolutely agree, I would never go. But it’s not just women who have a moral obligation to object to human rights abuses.

Some people can shut their eyes to injustice. Which is how the Holocaust happened...

I would never holiday in Dubai for those reasons mentioned. Lots of other places to go.

For a lot of people it’s out of sight out of mind I think unfortunately.

I’ve always known about the human rights abuses and appalling treatment of women in some Gulf states and would never visit but it didn’t hit home to me properly until a friend of DP went there to oversee trade work. He was so horrified he left after a week and the things he saw and told us made it very real for want of a better word to me.

Its a horrid place full of men leering at you like your a piece of meat, very very very corrupt country, very dark side to it. Really don't understand why so many go for nuts for it. Went there for a week about 11 years ago, by day 3 I was trying to book a flight out!

Someone I was at school with is an insta-star (ish) out there and bleats about veganism. Irony free.

100% agree, OP.

Dubai is pure Insta - glamour & prestige & Oh-look-at-meeeeee and behind it a story of poverty, imprisonment & human rights abuses.

Not for me.

Absolutely YANBU. I would NEVER visit Dubai. Wouldn’t feel comfortable economically supporting them with my cash.

@Bouncealot

Pre 9/11 I met a woman on a course who hosted dinner parties for members of the Taliban (her DP worked for a high profile charity at the time). I asked her how she felt about women being stoned to death in football stadiums for reading books and wearing make up. She walked away. No one backed me up. I feel like a lone voice on such matters that I only raise my head once in a blue moon!

That's horribly similar to the stadium scene at the start of Handmaids Tale S2

Based on my knowledge of women who choose to holiday in Dubai (celebs and people I know irl)...

....they're thick, vacuous and don't care about anything other than their own material pleasure.

Ignorance isdisgraceful enough, but anything else shows a person in a moral vacuum.

Did you ever see this from Jedward ? Who knew they were so succinct and on point:

twitter.com/planetjedward/status/1340702169700429825?s=19

Filipino maids get treated like shit in South Kensington too tbh.

Ive never been to Dubai and don't want to go really, never appealed. I do wonder if the attention brought by westerners to women's issues in Dubai motivates the authorities there to makes changes. I know surface changes have been made in Saudi because they want tourists.

I have a friend who lived there for a while with family and her mum was always bemoaning how awful the service is in the U.K. compared to Dubai.

Yes, I would rather have a glum barista make my coffee who has the freedom to travel and leave her job at will rather than have someone running out to put petrol in my car for me all smiles because she’s had her passport confiscated and has zero agency or control over her life and has to appease her employer because she’s literally enslaved to them...

Whilst i agree men too should be outraged, for me as a woman reading about the experience of the Princess (whose treatment while hostage, let's be honest will be a more privileged version of say you or I), it's easier to relate to how these things could happen. And very quickly.

There are some abuses of human rights which we'll feel more keenly than men. Another example of why biology matters.

They don't care.
They care about facials and botox and bikini bodies.

This was an interesting read; from a female ex-pat living in the Middle East. She addresses many of the points raised here so far.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/AMA/3312838-I-live-in-Saudi-Arabia-AMA