In the school I strongly proposethat either everybody dresses equally or everybody dresses as he/she wishes... even veils and burkas (I know I am little bit weird on this stuff.. so be it...).. although I always love compromise... this is, a case by case approach as in the spanish public school.

And now for the second one since it has been around the spanish press...

From El Pais

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Lopez/Aguilar/cancela/acto/Arabia/Saudi/permitian/asist encia/mujeres/periodistas/elpepuint/20070115elpepuint_6/Tes

Your link is basically a translation of the spanish agency report.. so nothing new to add on this front.

But I want to say that the same issue can be dealt using different perspectives.

If you take it as international relations, then: Any institution from Saudi Arabia has all the right to be as misogyne as he wishes, and also the spanish minister can decide freely where to go and where not to go. You just have to  behave yourself and say "this is not what we agreed" sorry, we make a point but we do not make fuss.

From a personal perspective it recalls me that Saudi Arabia is one of the most disgusting places on Earth. Their basic social structured SUPER_MEGA-UBER patriarcy happened BY DECISION.. well IMPOSITION.I have always defended the right of different people/cultures to have different gender roles and different rules about what is appropriate and what is not for each gender. Gender equality is not measure by western standards.. it is measured by internal symbolic standards using social anthropology... and Saudi Arabia is one of the most repulsive cases where symbolically there is no need, actually it goes against most muslim principles and generalizations as storm points out....

And, top it all, they justify it on "cultural values"...I just want to puke... not only they denigrate woman (in their own sybolic parameters) but also make more difficult to defend the fact that the existence of gender roles does not nulifies women because we do not like those particular roles or we do not understand their internal relevance.

Sorry, but touching Saudi Arabia you touched a soft spot on me.. I really despise Saudi Arabian rulers.... I hate it much more becasue the average spaniards is all happy faces and happy money in front of the "rich muslim with petrodollars in the coast" and denigrates constantley the popor guy comming from Morocco due to "cultural different values"....

Now I am pissed...recalling this ...

Sighhhhhhh longgg....

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude