MUSCAT, 25 December 2003 — Gulf Arab Women must brush up their skills and education to land top jobs in the region’s male-dominated work places, activists said yesterday.
Unemployment in several Gulf countries is high, making it harder for women to get jobs.
The activists, speaking at a two-day Gulf Cooperation Council women’s meeting here, said women must do more to break through the glass ceiling.
“Changes in the business and offices won’t just happen if we don’t improve our skills and the level of our education,” Lujaina Mohsin Darwish, one of the two Omani women serving in the elected legislative council, told reporters.
Other speakers urged women to boost their self-confidence.
“Gulf women must fight fear of being regarded as backward. We become an enemy to ourselves if we hesitate to grab chances,” said Shaikha Hessa Saad Al-Sabah, president of the Arab Women Labor Union and daughter of the Kuwaiti crown prince.
Women in the Gulf countries have come a long way in a relative short time but they are often overlooked in landing plum jobs in their male-dominated societies.
“We need to make these changes ourselves because men won’t help since they see themselves as sole bread winners,” Fatma Jassim, a Qatari businesswoman, said.
In Kuwait, women have been fighting for suffrage and other political rights for the past 40 years, but male politicians block their every move.
Conservative politicians also tried to foil the efforts of Qatar to put women on an equal footing with men.
In 1999, the government allowed women to take part in municipal elections for the first time, only to face opposition from a group of conservative politicians and some civil servants.
“We need to be represented politically in the elected chambers to get top jobs but it looks like we are at an infancy stage on that front,” Omani businesswoman Aisha Ahmad said.
Although many Gulf women are graduates from British and US universities and can run for public office in Qatar, Bahrain and Oman, very few hold senior government posts.
