I Hate When This Happens

Jeffrey Goldberg Jul 20 2010, 12:15 PM ET

Saudi family discovers maid is a dude

Published: Jul 19, 2010 01:01 Updated: Jul 19, 2010 01:01

RIYADH: For seven months "she" cleaned the house, served tea to guests and even looked after their children. But when it was time to go back home, a Saudi family in the capital were in for a surprise: Their maid was in fact a guy.

The Arabic daily Al-Jazirah reported on Sunday that a Saudi family who employed a housemaid from the Philippines did not realize that the woman who had been serving them for seven months was a man.

"No one in the family had any doubts about the gender of the housemaid. She had smooth skin and had a beautiful face. She would not mix with men in the family," the newspaper said.

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Jeffrey Goldberg is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. Author of the book Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, Goldberg also writes the magazine's advice column. More

Before joining The Atlantic in 2007, Goldberg was a Middle East correspondent, and the Washington correspondent, for The New Yorker. Previously, he served as a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and New York magazine. He has also written for the Jewish Daily Forward, and was a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.

His book Prisoners was hailed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, The Progressive, Washingtonian magazine, and Playboy. Goldberg rthe recipient of the 2003 National Magazine Award for Reporting for his coverage of Islamic terrorism. He is also the winner of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists prize for best international investigative journalist; the Overseas Press Club award for best human-rights reporting; and the Abraham Cahan Prize in Journalism. He is also the recipient of 2005's Anti-Defamation League Daniel Pearl Prize.

In 2001, Goldberg was appointed the Syrkin Fellow in Letters of the Jerusalem Foundation, and in 2002 he became a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.