Wednesday, 6 May 2015
gender discrimination in Egypt family business
gender discrimination in businesses and work place is popular in Egypt. Due to traditions and some of the people beliefs that women can not perform most of the work done by men, which is wrong, families tend to hand over their businesses to their sons and not their daughters. As being part of a triplet of 2 brothers and a sister, it is most likely that my brother and I will take over the business, not because that my sister is less qualified to take over, she is probably the smartest and best qualified to take over the business. However, the problem is that the suppliers and people we work with, would think that she is not capable enough due to who the society mind is set. My father would not have a problem with our sister working with us, but in Egypt, most families tend to give the business to the eldest son and failure might harm the family image and pride, that their eldest son isn't capable of succeeding in the market
The majority of the public sector employees are men, which gives an indication that women are not treated equally in getting jobs.
However, women who come from wealthy families in Egypt tend to start their own business, using help from their families, due to them knowing that it would be preferable for their father to hand over the business to the eldest son. Many of these women have been successful in their businesses, which proves that they are capable of succeeding and might be more qualified to take the family business to the next level, but the society and traditions act as barriers.
The case studies that we did in family business course and other modules as well show that many women are capable maintaing the success of the family business, which further proves the point that women should have a bigger role in family businesses in countries such as Egypt. However will the society be able to accept that, where many are not educated well and have traditions and norms that are against women working, that's the main question. In order for Egypt to progress, the people need to accept that some women might be more qualified and capable of doing a specific job than many of the men.
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its true but most cases in middle-east and Muslim countries the reason for women not taking over the business is not that people believe they are not capable of doing the work and getting the job done, some families are just unhappy with the appearance of their daughters or wives in public and working with other men. this is a belief that most Muslim women have been dealing with. however I think this is becoming less of an issue day by day as the world is becoming more converge and even those religious families are learning that by letting women in the society it will not harm their reputations. in fact in some cases the families pass the business to women as they are stronger against men and as they want to prove themselves and prove the wrongfulness of the old traditions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with mo but still Youssef has a point that in some nations women don't get an even chance to succeed their parents in family business, however as Youssef mentioned many women are starting their own business and are successful which proves that women should get their chance as men do in succeeding family members in running family business
ReplyDeleteI find this very interesting because I come from the same background and i totally agree that Arab countries do not give much importance to women when it comes to succeeding family businesses. However, in my family my sister's are not concerned with this at an early age but rather more when they start having a family of themselves. Now that her duty as a mother is not as important because her kids have grown up she is more and more interested in participating in the family business. However, knowing that some families are unhappy seeing there daughter or wives working in public and working with other men that doesn't mean that with time things won't change by then. A good example of how Morocco is evolving in gender inequality is that many women in Morocco now have important positions in known private and public companies. My mother is a good example because she is now president and CEO of my father's holding for the last 2 years.
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