“True or False: Nowadays in Britain, women are just as likely as men to get a promotion at work”? A friend of mine faced this question recently when she sat one of the newly introduced British citizenship tests. She looked at the question in disbelief; what should she reply?
She opted for True and told a lie. Male and female graduates may start their careers on an even footing, but a gap quickly emerges. A recent report found that women in Britain earned on average 17 percent less than men. And it’s not just in Britain that women are lagging behind men. A EU report found a gap between men and women’s pay of 15 percent. Women also lag behind in the boardroom: Only 10 percent of the board members of large European enterprises are women.
It all makes depressing reading. If a country like Britain which has a female head of state and which was ruled by a woman prime minister for over a decade is still finding it hard to bridge the career gap between men and women, how hard will it be for the Arab world to bridge the divide between men and women in the workplace?
Gender equality at work is more complex than simply an issue about men being paid more than women for doing the same job. The problem is more deep-rooted.
An important factor is that careers traditionally taken by women are less well paid than those dominated by men. Consider nurses and doctors. Traditionally, medicine was for men and nursing for women until a few determined women forced their way into medicine and the tide began to change. But walk into any hospital ward tomorrow and you will still find many of the carers are women and carers, just like the other fours Cs that women favor — cleaning, cashiering, clerical work and catering — are among the most poorly paid jobs in the market.
It’s wonderful that so many women want to be carers, but is it a choice? This is a fundamental question. It is a three-pronged problem. Girls often do not understand the implications of the choices they make at school and end up studying subjects that they find interesting rather than those that will open up their employment prospects. There are also cultural factors or stereotypes about the jobs that men and women should do. Finally, women often end up being short-changed in their careers because they have family commitments. A lack of flexible work and a shortage of childcare means they frequently end up doing part-time work that is notoriously poorly paid.
Women who embark on a corporate career can also find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place once they start thinking about starting a family. The later they leave it, the greater the risk of not being able to conceive. Yet those who decide to start a family can often find that their careers hit the brakes. Britain’s Equal Opportunities Commission estimates that 30,000 women a year are dismissed because they become pregnant.
It is not all doom and gloom; there are many employers who take a different view.
They are increasingly seeing the benefits of emphasizing a work-life balance for both men and women. Encouraging paternity leave for instance does much in the fight against inequality in the workplace.
Saudi women face an altogether different set of challenges in the workplace. The main problem for them is not childcare but a lack of jobs. Women only make up 16 percent of the work force, a figure that is significantly lower than even the regional average. In recent years much progress has been made and doors are beginning to open where they were once closed. Though the majority of women continue to be employed in the education sector, women graduates now have a far wider choice of careers than even a decade ago. When I graduated, teaching was the only job I could have applied for.
Progress has been uneven. Some companies — like Aramco — have long championed the employment of women. Others still lag behind. Sabic, for example, who was once forward-thinking enough to hire me in their London offices have yet to extend their recruitment program to female graduates. It is the same in the civil service. While some ministries have been quietly employing women for years, others are still closed to women. Clearly this is not a matter of principle but of will.
The advent of private universities both in the Kingdom and in neighboring states has also opened up possibilities for many girls. All of this comes at a price. Though women from relatively privileged backgrounds in the three urban centers are making strides, their less privileged sisters still face woefully limited choices.
The core issue is the prevalent mindset. I for one would like to see the disappearance of the words “ladies’ section” in the discourse on women’s employment. It is an expression that epitomizes the marginalization of women.
It shows that we have yet to understand that men and women offer the same potential to employers. It is very much a two-track attitude with men at the center and women in a secondary role.
In Saudi Arabia we have recently witnessed a number of high-profile women break through the glass ceiling and take up posts that would have once been considered out of bounds. Both in Britain and in Saudi Arabia there are examples of women who have achieved great success in their careers. These women are exceptional, I applaud them wholeheartedly. Sometimes they clear a path for others to follow, but sometimes they remain the exception that proves the rule.
If our women do so well despite the obstacles in their career paths, can you imagine what they could achieve if they had a clear run?
