(Originally posted in Hypocrisy Central)

The media predictably picked up on a dress code issued by  in August 2017  by Saudia Airlines mandating a dress code which would not, under their social mores,  cause offence to other passengers, and citing examples of exposing legs or arms. It was held in the liberal West to be an example of a regressive and repressive regime, and in particular dictating to women what they could or couldn’t wear.

Grumpy was torn between whether to comment in the ‘Oddity’ or ‘Hypocrisy’ section here, and in the end chose the latter.

In March 2017, United Airlines ejected two women for covering their legs, but were happy for them to wear dresses, no doubt exposing their legs in so doing; indeed, their dress code includes  the dikat (for such they have, just as the Saudis)  about “unacceptable travel attire includes … leggings”.

The irony is hard to miss; the issue is not that one regime or another seeks to impose some notion of what is sartorially offensive (for both do), but the  extent to which flesh is visible or not. United seemed far more concerned with a display of VPL than of what the Daily Mail displays daily in excess, that of so called ‘side boob’, and would cause apoplexy in Riyadh.

More curiously, Grumpy wonders what the process is for a female traveller from Riyadh switching to a United Airlines Flight to a US domestic destination; without a change of clothes; the choice would be where to be thrown off the plane, as both codes cannot be satisfied without a change of same.

On balance, Grumpy would probably choose to be ejected off an aircraft by the Saudis rather than by United Airlines; his mind goes back to the image in April 2017 of Dr David Dao, beaten, bloodied and glasses askew, being ‘escorted’ – feet first – off a United plane to make way for an employee of the airline.