“Women and workplace”, a phrase that has and will continue to cause a lot of arguments and discussions. Our famous “Anis Mansour” used to say: “A female worker is neither a female nor a worker!” In a male dominated society, many male professionals fight against presence of females at work claiming that they capture their job opportunities and minimize or even ruin their chances to win and be adequately prosperous in their fields. Few are considered to be advocates for women inside workplaces. Those who call for equality for both sexes and are sometimes labelled as “feminists” get this mark on their track record for life! Some stand a middle ground and opt for behaving like gentlemen. They never declare war, yet do their best to catch women doing something wrong at work, thus, open fire of sarcasm, ridicule and belittling. Women, accordingly, had and still have to face lots of challenges pursuing a career since the dawn of mankind.
Working with men is very demanding, especially when being a female manager. Reporting to males and having male colleagues and/or male subordinates call for special skills and innate talents toolkit from women’s part. Pretense and wearing masks to convey true or fake strength become a full time job. Power games turn into a hobby. Toughness and acquired aggressiveness are a must. “Survival for the Fittest” gets to be the common life motto. Showing any normal signs of tenderness or kindness could easily be mistaken for a weak dumb personality. All these factors deprive women of their natural feminism and compel them to think like a woman, yet act like a man! In addition, complications get aggravated when male subordinates resist female leadership, or when male colleagues look down at their women co-workers and fight against their promotions or success in their career path. Competitions, then, turns to be truly fierce and may be even ugly.
To add salt to injury, women sometimes need to pay for their feminism, particularly if they bestowed a touch of beauty, smartness or sensibility. Bullying and harassment, shameful as they sound, has unfortunately become a common practice, even in big multinational companies. Defending one’s self against them result in retaliation that can be really serious and violent at times. Women’s reputations get to be at stake. And when they open up they get attacked and threatened even more.
On the other hand, women at some other times need to pay for natural qualifications like when getting pregnant and when delivering children. They are entitled, by power of law, maternity leaves and time off work for baby care. These jeopardize their job prosperity, stability and their promotability inside the workplace. These even get them excluded from recruitment and talent pools at the first place. The need to put on a veil or to take it off, or dress up in a certain way hack women’s privacy and freedom of choice in some other occasions.
To stand a fair chance in a masculine world full of egoism, jealousy and grudges women need to work on possessing an adequate arsenal of self defense mechanisms. True self-confidence is a beginning. This could be enhanced through keen practice, continuous learning and eager development of one’s competencies and aptitudes. Believing in one’s self and unlimited resourcefulness is a must. This could be acquired through working on increasing self-awareness and the genuine essence within. Wearing a positive perspective towards life during hard and good times alike needs to be a daily habit. Nothing beats the RIGHT state of mind. “Every Exit is an Entry somewhere else” or “Every New Day is a Gift, Protect It.” Will help a lot as a guiding belief here. Relentless pursuit of full self-actualization against all and every odd are the required weapons of mass personal and professional happiness and welfare. This will come as a natural byproduct of the application of the previous tools if and when done with sincerity and good intention. These are not far of reach. We have a wide spectrum of prominent female figures who represent authentic epitomes and living proofs of these all. To name but a few we have “Sheryl Sandberg” FB COO, “Indra Nooyi” CEO & Chair of PepsiCo, “Virginia Rometty” CEO of IBM, “Amal Othman” an ex-Egyptian Minister and Aisha Rateeb a well astounded Egyptian activist, an ex-Egyptian Minister and Ambassador in Denmark then Germany and was the first female to hold this position abroad.
The whole universe is “Adam and Eve”, why now we want to make it “Adam and Steve”, specifically at work? Diversity is richness and wealth. For a whole eternity men and women have been complementing each other, and enriching the entire human experience and existence. Why should we deprive ourselves of such huge privilege at the modern workplace?
We are here to love, learn, let go and grow. Women at the workplace are no different. Women and the workplace is a combination that is born to outlive opponents and defy all hindering obstacles.
By: Eman El Nabawy
Country HR Manager
VFS Tasheel International
This article is a product of a writing competition organized by Global HR Forum & HR Revolution Middle-East Magazine. Ms. Eman El Nabawy was honorably one of the shortlisted winners in the HR Writer Competition. Judging Panel: Mahmoud Mansi, Dina Marei, Alia Faramawi, Ahmed Saadalla, Nada Adel Sobhi. General Coordinator: Ms. Nour Elzeny.
Photography: Ahmed Samir