Working Women In Egypt For centuries women have been expected to marry, produce children and care for the family and it is no different today. What is different today is the record numbers...
For centuries women have been expected to marry, produce children and care for the family and it is no different today. What is different today is the record numbers of Egyptian women working. These women face many challenges in their day to day lives.
In some cases, women are delaying marriage and some of those that do marry at the average age (22) are putting off starting a family. This is met with great disapproval from traditional Egyptian family members, since woman have rarely had opportunities for contact with men outside the family.
Women who work outside of the home are working twice. This means that while women might work away from the home, they have to work at home, as well: balancing cooking; cleaning; taking care of children, and managing family responsibilities and obligations. In many cases, without any help from the husband, who is conditioned from childhood to believe that household chores are exclusively a woman's responsibility.
Working women have always had to prove themselves on many levels, both at home and in the workplace. They face the difficulty of being accepted as valued workers and criticism for stepping out of the traditional female role. Typically women in the workforce wear many hats; wife, mother, homemaker and career person. They have the stress of having to deal with suspicion and criticism from family, worrying about sick children and balancing a career in an attempt to earn an income.
Prior to the mid-seventies, more than half of the women who worked held low-paying jobs as factories workers, domestic help, hospital aides and street cleaners.
Women today have better job opportunities that include CEOs, Drs., Professors, Deans of Universities, newspaper editors, stockbrokers and there is even a woman Judge and woman weight lifter who ranked sixth in the world in her age group and weight class. Women in all fields are challenged; however, they are continuing to make their mark in the corporate world and proving that they can multitask and work-life balance is one of the keys to being a successful working woman.
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