Are Women Forced to be Humble?

​I just had a quick conversation with a friend of mine. Well, if I’m being honest, I don’t know this friend that well but he’s more than just an acquaintance. We met at the gym and we started a conversation that derailed off into what I found to be a bit sexist.

To be fair, one can say his following comment was through no fault of his own, but it made me think that it was through no one’s fault either.

The conversation started with a topic of business meetings that quickly shifted into a blame game about how women in the Middle East enjoy staying at home and receiving money from their husbands/fathers. They don’t want to work and they’re actually very comfortable in this situation. Although there may be a few women who fall into this category, I refuse to believe that these are the majority of women today in the Middle East. And even if they are, is it fair for their actions or lack thereof to speak on our behalf as an entire gender?

We can’t blame these women who do stay at home and cook, raise the children, clean the house and more while receiving a pension of some sorts from their man for one simple reason. It’s not through lack of education or lack of trying to find a job but it is through a horrible economic climate that we are facing worldwide which makes members of both sexes eligible for unemployment. But if that’s the case, and this isn’t a question that is coming from an angry place at all, but why are women looked down upon if they’re the unlucky ones who don’t get selected for a job when their male counterpart does?

Why is it that when a woman informs a man of her education status, she is made to feel like it’s her fault for working this hard and not getting a job.

…how does that even make sense for any @KhaleejiGirl?

…how does any of this even make sense any @KhaleejiGirl?

Since when did working hard and/or knowing what you want come with a blame game label? Perhaps a woman who in fact stays at home to take care of the household is actually doing out of her own choice and not by force. But then why is she looked down upon?

We’re currently living in the 21st century and it feels like the same problems women were having in the 20th century are somewhat still a struggle. Yes, many women in the Middle East have achieved great strides in different fields like literacy, education, economics, and more. But I can’t help but wonder, why do many of the opposite sex forget that? Is it our own fault for not educating others of the great achievement that women have achieved so that fellow women or little girls can look up and aspire for such greatness along with, dare I say it, men to be silenced by our greatness?

Despite all of the female advances, many men still deem us to be inferior to them no matter what organization a @KhaleejiGirl may work in. The US-based Freedom House, led an 18 nation study within the Middle Eastern region. The study showed how Middle Eastern women still suffer from a "substantial deficit in women’s rights" described as the "most severe" on earth.” Unfortunately, the study also shows that “women in the region are significantly underrepresented in senior positions in politics and the private sector, and in some countries they are completely absent from the judiciary.”

I can go on and on about the different statistics and play the whole, “he said, she said” game but in the end research is showing that yes, us women still have a long way to go. My only question is, why? Why do we have a long way to go when we are just as capable and as smart as the opposite sex?