Frustration, sometimes even anger, was expressed by women academics and businesswomen from the Arab Gulf states. They were at the Binnenhof in The Hague to "smash" the stereotypes of Arab women prevailing in the West and in the Western media: "They think we are still completely covered in black, pulling our camel behind us."
|
|
"We are not allowed to drive, so what? Does your Queen drive her own car, does an ambassador drive his own car?"She said she was fed up with answering questions about the stereotypical driving ban while there were so many other more pressing subjects to talk about. She was rewarded with a roar of applause. In the audience were the Dutch Queen's sister, Princess Margriet, and a large delegation from the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) embassies representing the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait.
Businesswomen
Economist Hind al-Sheikh of the Saudi university of Riyadh demonstrated that in some ways women in the Gulf countries are ahead of western women.
She made the heads of the audience spin with dozens of diagrams on the female labour force in the Gulf region:
|
35 percent of investors in real-estate are women
60 percent of new investors in the stock market are women
25 percent of private businesses are owned by women
|
In the Netherlands, for instance, such percentages are not attained in any sector of the labour market.
But it's not all roses in the GCC, admitted the women present. The high percentage of female investors in the stock market is explained by the fact that in Saudi Arabia, for instance, entering the stock market is one of the things that women can do without having to obtain a guardian's consent.
Lagging behind
Professor of Sociology Lobna Al-Qazi of Kuwait University emphasized that women in the Gulf are becoming more and more economically independent: they are getting married at a later age and having fewer children and all this, she said, despite government incentives to provide marriage allowances and child allowance.
In Kuwait a male MP even suggested an allowance for housewives, so they would be able to stay at home and bring up their children. Al Qazi:
"I think as much as we women are trying to encourage women to stay in the labour force, the men for some reason want us to leave."
|
|
Inflated
Despite an increase of the number of women entering the labour force in Gulf countries, the overall participation of local women remains low, showed al-Sheikh, again with a staggering amount of graphs and stats.
The average number of female participants in the labour force in the leading countries of Bahrain and Kuwait is 25 percent. However, this number is inflated because it includes migrant workers and expatriates. The actual percentage of local women in the workforce does not even amount to half of this percentage.
Parallels
There are also parallels between Western and Gulf women, stressed al-Qazi.
"The challenges a woman faces here and in our society are the same. She has to juggle so many different occupations at home and outside the house. And she has to convince her male colleagues that she can be as successful, and that she will not leave the labour force to have a child. So I think these stereotypes how people view women in the labour force are the same, whether you are in the East or in the West."
The stereotypical view of subservient Arab women all dressed in black, with a camel in tow, is clearly outdated. It's labour participation, economic independence, and political activity that are the order of the day. The women in The Hague urged the Western media and the audience to no longer think of Arab women in stereotypes, and look instead at the 'truth behind the veil'.
Tags: Arab women, emancipation, emirates, Gulf, stereotypes