No single men allowed

Pix credit: http://www.terrace22.com/

Are you a single man? Sorry, no entry!

The debate came up again. Should bachelors be banned from shopping malls on Friday?

All the shopping malls in Qatar has a family day policy on Friday. This simply means if you are a single man, you are not allowed into the mall. Doesn't matter if you have a marriage certificate at home, a wife and child waiting back in the car or sitting at home. You are still single if you are alone. Sorry, no entry.

Over the years, the policy has became lax and many malls close an eye as there were accusations of gender and racial discrimination since most of the blue-collar workers including construction, technical, domestic and drivers were mostly men without their family in Qatar and hence were unable to enter the malls on their only day off. A good proportion also happen to be darker skin South Asians and Africans. Stopping single man at the door and having arguments was also simply not good public relations.

There were also many arguments at the malls door as newcomers and visitors who were not familiar with Qatar end up arguing with security guards as no one has ever heard of such a rule anywhere else in the world.

Of late, there has been a resurgence among Qataris and Qatar municipal council members to enact this rule as a law; hence legally ensuring the malls has to strictly enforce the no-entry law. Apparently, a large number of female Qataris and their families are not comfortable with the large number of single men in the malls. Or maybe, the queue at checkout was getting too long...

The big debate is how is this no-entry for single man policy going to fit into Qatar's plan to host the 2022 Football World Cup when large number of visitors will simply ignore this no-entry rule since a large segment of football fans will simply be men without their families. What happens then?

We'll find out in 6 years.