Women GIs Shock Islamic Saudis

U.S. women troops say they are shocking and sometimes even angering Saudi men in this Islamic fundamentalist country where women wear veils, walk behind their husbands and are not supposed to drive.

A woman F-15 fighter ground crew chief said today that Saudi men stop work and stare when she tells crewmen what to do. She said that Saudi men reacted so strongly when a woman ground crew member peeled off her shirt to work in a T-shirt underneath that a U.S. sergeant told her to put it back on.

A Saudi general said any difference in U.S. and Saudi ideas about women would not disrupt any part of the military operations because Saudi men and American women do not work side by side.

Islamic laws prevent women from driving cars and require them to cover most of their faces in public. Women must use separate beaches, separate theaters and are strictly limited in their rights to own property.

But the American women, including the ground crew chief, said there was no question that Saudi men react with dismay and occasional hostility when they see American women doing what here is still considered a man’s job: repairing airplanes, driving trucks, serving in non-combat jobs with 82nd Airborne paratroopers and, in at least one case, directing ground crewmen.