Arab men weigh women’s career as more important
See women’s jobs as important for family
More than half of Arab men weigh women’s jobs as more important than staying home, a new poll by a leading women’s magazine showed.
For its Mother’s Day’s special edition, “Sayidati” magazine released its poll’s results after interviewing 1,200 men and women from six Arab countries.
Men
Of the total 600 men interviewed, 390 of them said that they would not ask their wives to give up their career to be stay-in-home mothers, but on the contrary they said that women working contribute to more of a financial leverage to the family, and this will help in raising a better family.
However only 153 of the men said that they would ask their wives to compromise their work if it disturbs family life, citing frequent travel trips or falling sick due to work stress as examples.
Only a minority of 57 men said that they would ask their wives to leave work without giving any reasons.
Women
As for women, the poll showed that 370 out of 600 of the Arab women polled, said that they are compelled to work to support their husbands, while 134 of them said they are ready to step out of work if the pay was low.
As for joining success in family and career, only 87 of the female participants thought that women can score both.
Mother’s Day’s celebration falls on March 21 for most of the Arab countries. And it was first introduced in Egypt in 1956 by Mostafa Amin , an Egyptian jurist and one of the founders of the Egyptian national movement and Cairo University, only later other Arab countries followed suit.
Women differ in opinion
In its Mother’s Day’s edition, Sayidati interviewed Arab women media figures, businesswomen, and female officials from both the government and the private sectors, on whether women can achieve success at work and home in the same time.
Some of the women did not see success both at work and home was possible. “I left many chances and opportunities pass by to tend for my family needs first, or else I would have saw a great leap in my career,” said Rania Kurdi, a Jordanian actress.
Meanwhile, Parween Habib, the Bahraini famed poet and TV host for her program “Naltaqi” which translates “We Meet” in English, questioned “when will women be satisfied with their success away from this innate and natural desire to be mothers?”
Habib is not married nor does she has any children, and in her TV program, she hosts prominent poets, poetesses, artists from all over the Arab World.
Emirate’s Raja al-Gurg, who is a president of the Federation of the UAE Chamber of Commerce and Industry Business Women's Committee, and also a mother, almost gave a sigh in her print answer to the magazine “it was not easy,” she said, but the high executive profile did not give details on how she was able to balance between career and her raising her children.
Syrian actress Rana Ayadh, agreed that women can balance both worlds with success, but another actress also from Syria, Suzanne Najm al-Dine said “whoever leaves her job to raise children only is a failure.”
(Translated from Arabic by Dina al-Shibeeb)