From the first minute after your plane lands at the Cairo International Airport, you can easily notice that you are in a country that relies heavily in its production on the participation of its women in the workforce. “Women make up 24.2% of the labor force”; this is so noticeable to the extent that you may think you are in a country that is totally free of all sorts of work gender discrimination.

This not true, despite the fact that in many Egyptian families the breadwinners are the women. In 2011, the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Gender Inequality Index (GII) rated Egypt 126th out of 148 countries. This indicator suggests strong gender-based disparities in areas of reproductive health, economic functioning, and overall empowerment. Moreover, the World Bank reports that women face far more hostility in the overall business environment, citing a finding that showed “female-owned firms in Egypt report needing 86 weeks on average to resolve a conflict through the legal system, compared to 54 weeks for male-owned firms.”

Regardless of all what indicators say, we are not here to discuss the traditional types of work discrimination Egyptian females face; those related to laws or even unofficial regulations that prevent employment or the empowerment of qualified and well-educated women in specific jobs or treating them unequally comparing to their male counterparts. This is sometimes because of their marital status, being veiled or unveiled, their beauty –yes there are lots of women suffering only because of their beauty, or simply because they are women…

We are about to address a different type of work discrimination, women suffering from this type are qualified and working with no obvious legal discrimination problems; this type exists directly because of the unchanging culture and certain wrong beliefs. Beliefs like women are not qualified enough, even if they are, women’s performance is lower than that of men because of their weak physical structure, women are less efficient than men because of their duties and responsibility towards their home and family, the list is endless. In Egypt you may hear sentences like “Don’t visit a woman doctor, men are cleverer”, “Don’t appoint a woman lawyer, men are better”, even when you are choosing a private tutor you will hear the same. You will feel that the society has an implied agreement that all women workers are less qualified than all their male counterparts, despite the fact that sometimes the contrary is more correct. Laws allow women to serve in some very sensitive senior positions such as being president or prime minister, but society does not, so we can call this type as “Implied work gender inequality”.

Another wrong belief most of us have, is that Egyptian women in ancient times were very subjugated and oppressed regarding their work life, and the modern era, in which we are living, is when the women regain their rights after long battles and struggles. Surprisingly, the contrary is truer here as well. During ancient times in Egypt, females were allowed to work in senior and sensitive positions, the country was even ruled by Queen Hatshepsut for a long successful period of time.

So if we search for this implied work gender inequality and its reasons, we won’t find it directly related to neither religious beliefs nor social norms… So why do you think it exists?

Dina Marei

EDITORS: Mennat-Allah Yasser Zohny & Nada Adel Sobhi