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Why the Middle East Is a Good Place For Women Tech Entrepreneurs
pbahra writes "Conferences for start-ups and entrepreneurs often feature 'pitch contests,' slots in which aspiring entrepreneurs take to the stage to sell their ideas to the audience. Last month's ArabNet conference, held in the Lebanese capital, was no different. What was different, however, was the number of pitches from female entrepreneurs. The stereotype has it that women in the Middle East are subjugated, oppressed and barely let out of their houses. But if that is the case, how come 40% of the pitches were from women—a higher percentage than is typical in equivalent conferences held in Europe? Nor was this closer-to-equal representation of women unique to ArabNet--other conferences in the region boast similar ratios."
How many of them still had their clitoris?
The opposite of progress is congress
Women driving has been a controversial issue in Saudi Arabia since 1990 when 47 women got into 14 cars and drove on to a main street in Riyadh. They were stopped, suspended from work for two years and condemned for years in religious sermons and social circles....
honestly
Beirut isn't very Arab. It's close to 40% Christian.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The stereotype has it that women in the Middle East are subjugated, oppressed and barely let out of their houses.
In Saudi Arabia, that's *not* just a stereotype. Not to say that Saudi Arabia is representative of the entire region. But let's not pretend that more pitches from women at some conference makes it okay for one of the largest countries of the region to still tell women they can't drive, vote, show their faces in public, or even leave their house without male escort.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Both may be true -- that this conference was friendly to women running startups, and also that women in many parts of the Middle East are drastically subjugated versus women in at last European and American countries. Who wrote this summary, anyway, and with what agenda?
TFA answers the question: "Home working also allows women to combine their traditional roles of homemaker and mother, with being an entrepreneur. " So they are able to fulfill their expected roles. Also, "...most of the female entrepreneurs at the conference were young and had spent time in Europe, the U.S. or Australia." Many of them have more permissive families.
Don't forget get being beating, raped and even murdered with the tacit approval of the society and the law.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'll bet they'd be in an even better position if they were in countries/cultures where they didn't have to worry about being stoned to death and could drive themselves to meetings. But that's just me.
According to summary, 40% of applicants were women. What percent of the accepted submissions were women? That would be a far mare significant statistic!
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
A female VP from a major defense contractor was made to wait outside a contract signing not too long ago. A male subordinate sat at the event in her stead.
And that's supposedly the way women can be treated by the business classes. I certainly would think twice before I subjected myself to such a culture. If you can be a successful entrepreneur, you would provably also succeed in a much more favorable culture.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
They better hope that oil lasts forever. Because that's about the only thing that makes anyone want to do business there now.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The article stressed how the women in Saudi Arabia could "Work from home". It neglected to say that the almost have to since they aren't allowed in public without a male relative around.
The part where one country is not an entire continent sized region or representative of a globe spanning religion.
Also Women is Saudi Arabia can vote and run for office, historically they could not (like everywhere 100 year ago).
Also there is nothing in the law about leaving the house. Particular families might practice that but you would have to look for statistics to see how prevalent, if at all, that it is.
As for face coverings, yes Saudi Arabia practices that but most Arad nations outright ban the practice and the consensus is that that practice is a mistranslation and is only practiced by fanatics.
So what is that? 2/5 complete lies, and the rest exaggerations [some of them so extreme as to have no sliver of truth] (particularly if you look at them as accusations against all Arabs).
You can find crazies, fanatics, and hate filled individuals in all countries and religions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Compiled for the UN by the Arab world's friendliest own Arab economists and technicians. The Arab world is at or near the bottom, for the entire world, in terms of literacy, education, technical proficiency, intellectual property creation, research and development, internet penetration, media penetration, social and media freedom, contract law, technical small business start ups and technology transfer. Below the levels of much of Africa and SE Asia. Culturally, the exclusion of women, minorities only speaks to part of it. It really has to do with a historical tradition of abandoning everything the West had to contribute since the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. If you want a Turkish -centric history of this read "What Went Wrong?" by Bernard Lewis.
Without Hezbollah Israel would probably had done similar kind of ethnic cleansing in Lebanon that Palestinians have faced within Palestine. Remember, Hezbollah was more or less started only after Israel attacked and occupied Lebanon and the main goal of Hezbollah was driving Israel out of the country.
And in Israel some of the Jews have started their own gender separation, which is worse than in many Arabic/Muslim countries. For example, in many parts of Israel, women aren't allowed to use the same sidewalks, they have to sit in a different parts of busses etc. And women who don't obey, are severely beaten.
As ar as I know, Hezbollah is military force which is not very concerned about modesty issues etc, unlike so called Jewish Talebans:
Female circumcision is an African tribal custom, not Middle Eastern. It is now associated with Islam since most of the area was conquered by Muslims,. Muslim rulers generally let the locals continue their customs, and a lot of conversion was a converted king who told his populace to convert, but didn't dare risk rebellion by abolishing popular customs such as this. Arguments still continue as to whether it's an acceptable practice under Islam.
First, we need to separate personal choice from law or enforced custom.
A tiny percentage of Christians still practice strict biblical Christianity (believe gays should be put to death, women wear head covering in church, etc.), and NONE of them are able to put that into law to force others to obey their interpretation. In fact, they're generally laughed at or condemned by the society at large -- see the Westboro Baptists.
A large percentage of Muslims still practice strict Quranic Islam, and many of them have it in law and enforced custom to force others to obey their interpretation. People are constantly jailed, beaten and even executed for violating these religious laws.
There is a BIG difference in practice between Christianity and Islam.
People have been studying the Bible with this view for quite a long time. However, this has only recently started to happen with the Quran and Hadith, and such a thing should not be done in a Muslim country if you value your life. The Quran is still considered the absolute, unchanging, infallible Word of Allah by most adherents. That and Hadith form their law. If gays were to be put to death then, they are to be put to death now. Allah's law does not change.
Note to the wise, if you're going to split with your wife try to make sure she has a job that makes nearly as much as you.
Or better yet, don't be a moron, grow a pair of balls, and don't be a stupid ass by marrying a stupid bitch who's going to take you to the cleaners.
I see this shit getting start every single day, at frat parties. I live in a college town and see all the dudes with ZERO game "somehow" "get lucky" and hook up with some decent looking chick who is going to college at a tech school for "business administration" and is clearly desperate as fuck to get out of this small town. Women have an extraordinary ability to rationalize themselves into this type of arrangement where they "think" they're happy....until they're not. It isn't until 3-4 years later that her mind and heart starts to wander, and by then she's probably got him cowering in a corner and bending to her every will.
The cure to this is to develop actual value and confidence in that value.....then after marrying a woman of equal or [i]lesser[/i] value, work to maintain your value instead of sitting on the couch getting fat and nasty, and guess what???? If you do your fucking homework and pick the right girl, you'll never have a problem with a stupid bitch taking you to the cleaners!