Throughout history, Egyptian women have proved themselves true partners to men in many things.
In spite of this, and today in 2011, we still find people in Egypt who look at women
with a conflicted and unjust viewpoint.
I have 3 different work experiences:
Regarding the first experience - from my point of view as a woman -
I'll be talking about the difference between my work and that of men.
Okay, so I was already lucky that I received my first job offer right after graduation.
The head of the department where I worked was a woman
so, maybe she didn't really have a problem with whether I was a woman or a man.
They preferred to have a man for the job,
but they noticed that all the men who applied for jobs
were less competent and active than the women.
I got the job.
But what was notable throughout the six years that I spent in my first job
- which was in a journalism institution that has a website -
was that there was a gap in salaries between men and women.
Men always received higher salaries, even if they worked less.
Even if they had a lesser position.
The logic we were told stood behind it was that they were responsible for their families and homes
and consequently they are more deserving of a higher salary.
I don't think that the Egyptian society does not accept women's work
but I believe that the problems facing women regarding work
do not pertain to the society not accepting their work.
They rather have to do with women having to deal with specific cases preventing them from doing so.
For example, I have many friends, who willingly chose to stay at home for over a year - at first -
with their young children.
And when they tried after to get back into the job market, they faced problems,
like wanting to find training or guidance,
and they have no idea who can help them find these things.
Some of them try to find opportunities of free grants, for example,
that will help them get back to the job market,
but they don't have anyone to provide good guidance in how to obtain these grants.
In lots of other cases, there are ladies who think of having their own projects at home
and they, too, need some form of help,
someone to tell them what the steps to achieving their goals are.
We need a stronger role for women in Egypt in the upcoming period.
Since we are about to go into elections,
which could be the first REAL elections to be held in Egypt,
we need to have more political awareness for women.
There should be easy tips on women's websites,
so that women, since they will login to the website anyways,
could do something useful, like read something that would tell them how to vote
or what the PR list system is like, how the individual list system works,
how the elections will proceed.
Women need to know all of this quickly before the elections
so, this might be a good idea: that we put such information on websites for women.
We're now entering a new era,
Where we can see a new Egypt that has no corruption or despotism.
We also want to see a new way of perceiving women in Egypt.
"Egyptian Women Voice" is a new website that raises awareness, and helps women solve their problems.
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