Women are “breaking glass ceilings” but organisational change is needed to ensure they are better empowered, the boss of a Dubai authority has said.
Ayesha Abdullah, managing director of Dubai Healthcare City Authority, said there were many cultural-related expectations of women in the Arab world.
However, it was important to realise that women worked for a number of reasons, including in some cases to provide for their families.
“There are still barriers to break,” she said. “Women are not just working to buy designer handbags. Organisations have a responsibility to make sure those doors are opened for women.”
Abdullah, who was speaking at the Arabian Business Women’s Forum on Monday, said she believed women in the UAE were more fortunate than in other Gulf countries.
“My personal view is we have a long way to go when it comes to the economic as well as political empowerment of women,” she said.
Lucy Bruce, founder of Harmony House, said many women were also guilty of a “divide and conquer” mentality where they undermined their own gender in the workplace.
However, she said a lot of gender discrimination was also internal with women not backing themselves into senior positions because of self doubt.
They should be “true to themselves”, she said.
The conference comprised six panels on topics such as empowering Arab women, high profile positions and entrepreneurship as well as a keynote address from HE Maryan Al Suwaidi, deputy CEO licensing, supervision and enforcement at the Securities and Commodities Authority.
Mariana De Nadai, CEO of Unifrutti Asia, said maternity leave should instead be called family leave, pointing out that on one hand women wanted to be treated differently but they also wanted the same positions as men.
“Men don’t stop women from being successful, women stop women because we ask for things that men do not,” she said.
She said, in a comment met with some resistance from the audience, that there were certain positions that required long stretches away from the family for which she would never hire a woman.
She said it was because she personally felt it was difficult to travel and raise a family and it would cause frustration and stress.
Manahel Thabet, president of Smart Tips consultancy, called for more focus on locally produced academic talent and investment in next generation science and technology instead of conventional science and literature.
Virgin Megastore president Nisreen Shocair said she hired based on talent and did not believe in quotas.
“I always hire the best person for the job, ” she said. “They could be male or female.”
Architect and business consultant Gulizar Jonian said women did not “have to be robots”.
“We don’t have to do it in the men’s way, we do it in our way.”
Two men attended the forum, with the CEO of Dubai Trade causing much debate after urging women not to be “too aggressive” and instead harness their feminine traits.
“Keep up your femininity, you don’t have to be too rude to be a leader,” he said.
The reaction from several women in the room was that the global leadership model was a male one.
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