Women’s Rights and Call to Shifting Paradigms from Under Representation into Empowerment

What is it about?

The study is set to investigate women empowerment status in Lebanon with a focus on education, career, and positions in management, public sector and civil society as well as women’s impact and potentials that would enable them to be good fits for leadership positions. Another purpose of the study is to elicit suggestions that would promote the Lebanese women's rights and ensure equity in terms of employment and participation in the political arena and civil society. The article reports the findings of a plethora of related literature as well as the descriptive statistical analysis of responses to questionnaire consisting of predefined questions used to collect the data reflecting the attitudes and perceptions of 331 educated Lebanese respondents of different academic majors and professions. Reflection logs were qualitatively analyzed to report the vision of changes suggested by the respondents. The findings of the study underscored the necessity for legislation and education that would conform with the women empowerment instruments and conventions and would render a significant change in the culture, values and mentalities of the Lebanese society which would ensure the full investment of both, women’s and men’s, potentials .

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Why is it important?

In Arab countries in general and in Lebanon in particular, employers crack down on the working mothers. A woman’s role is mainly considered to be at home, raising the children and handling the household duties. The mother’s work outside of the home is often perceived as unimportant in comparison with her role at home; women are compelled to work only to support their spouses financially when economic times are harsh.The household duties cause some problems, in terms of career, for the majority of females. Working women work under tremendous pressure as they have to fulfill their duties as mothers in opposition to having productive roles in the places of work. Women perceive and fear such pressure which is the main reason for having women’s educational accomplishments undisclosed in their workforce representation.

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