Yemeni women reject the findings of the latest “Gender Gap” survey [Archives:2006/1004/Last Page]
December 4 2006
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For the Yemen Times
It is one thing to rightfully demand that the things get better for women in this county, but it's another story to find out the world doesn't think much of the progress so far achieved here in that field. In the latest Global Gender Gap survey, published last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Yemen came out last among the 117 countries scrutinized by the authors, who include Ricardo Hausmann, Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, Laura D. Tyson, Dean of the London Business School and Saadia Zahidi, Head of the World Economic Forum's Women Leaders Program.
The relative ratio of the inequality between the sexes in Yemen was calculated to be 0,4672 on the scale where zero signifies absolute inequality and one means the opposite. The desired equality, however, is nowhere to be found in today's world according to the authors of the survey. Even Sweden which came out on top still has a long way to go before it can hope to achieve total equality of genders, its current score being 0.8133.
The report measures the size of the gender gap in four critical areas, namely economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment. It is precisely the last category which cost most of the countries precious points. On the other hand, the Scandinavian “gender paradise,” where women feel quite at home in politics and men often stay home with the children on state-sponsored paternal leave, dominated the survey. Sweden is the overall champion of equality, Norway, Finland and Iceland taking the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place respectively and Denmark occupy the 8th rank. With Germany as number 5 and United Kingdom and Ireland in that order closing the top ten it was only New Zealand, 7th, and most interestingly Philippines, 6th, disrupting the European hegemony.
The high placing of the Philippines, where widespread poverty is as much of a problem as in Yemen, proves a society can aspire for gender equality regardless of its dire economic situation. With their second female president since 1986, this developing South East Asian country beats most of the developed Western nations where woman have never reached the highest executive position.
But what about the Arab world? Of the ten Arab countries included in the survey Yemen is the only one where women at least tried to contest the presidency. Still, it ranks much worse than the alleged Arab champion of equality, Kuwait, 88th, and trails even behind Saudi Arabia at the second-to-last position. Sumayya Ali Rajja was the first Yemeni woman to announce her bid for presidency, though she later quit the race, doesn't hide her indignation over the results of the survey.
“I do have trouble with the study because it's done from a very different perspective than the one we live in. The trouble with us is that the West equates the veil with no rights which is totally untrue. And I think it is very important for children to see a woman driving or to see a woman bargaining and understand that this is Okay,” says the former presidential candidate. And she is not the only one who has doubts over the validity of the latest global overview of gender equality.
Husnia Ahmad Al-Kadri is no beginner when it comes to studying the inner workings of society. As a director of Gender-Development Research and Studies Center at Sana'a University since it reopened in 2003, she believes she knows what she needs to know to discount the findings of the international “Global Gender Gap” team. Yemen certainly has its problems, she says, but that doesn't make it the worst country in the region for women to live.
“If we are behind all of the countries of the Arabic Peninsula, it is not a good research. I feel that we are better than the Gulf states, even better than Kuwait,” says Al-Kadri and goes on to voice her concern over what kind of signal the survey sends not only to Yemenis, but also to their immediate neighbors to the North. “They will encourage the government of Saudi Arabia not to do anything for the progress because they gave them certificate now that they are better than Yemen. As for us, we believe in our efforts and we are confident about ourselves. We don't need approval from these researchers. But they will help Saudi Arabia to leave the things as they are.”
Al-Kadri says the real situation of women on both sides of the Saudi-Yemeni border is best reflected by the fact that many women from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states “come here to learn from our experience.”
She is quick to acknowledge the scope of the problems that women in Yemen face, “The status of women is not good, we have high illiteracy, we have high levels of early marriage which restricts the autonomy of women and prevents them from making progress in education and also economically. But I think if we, women and men, do our best to change the status of the women, we will be better than others.”
Sumayya Ali Rajja shares the same view. In fact, the need to invest in the development and to make sure that health services and education are available even in the often overlooked rural areas of Yemen, formed a strong part of her presidential campaign platform. She didn't win, but she didn't lose her hope for the better future of her country either. All the more so because she says she can see the potential for change all around.
“I have a lot of respect for Yemeni women. They just need a little bit more education to know that they can do things. But I think for me, being in Yemen, not being veiled, mixing with all sorts of communities, that's good enough for me, I don't even need to be the president,” she explained.
Pavel Vondra, is a freelance journalist and independent film-maker, currently working on a documentary film about Yemeni women in politics.
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