Women in The United Arab Emirates - History

History

The role of women in UAE society has gradually expanded since the discovery of oil. Before 1960 there were few opportunities for them outside the realm of home and family. The late president, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, acknowledged the validity of women participating in the work force as well as in the home. Zayed's wife, Sheikha Fatima, heads the Women's Federation and promotes training, education, and the advancement of the status of women. In the early 1990s, there were five women's societies promoting various issues of importance to women, including literacy and health.

Women constituted 6.2 percent of the work force in 1988. A study by the Administrative Development Institute found that a majority of female workers who are UAE citizens work under the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. In 1988 they accounted for 82 percent of UAE national employees in these ministries. As of the late 1980s and early 1990s, women graduates outnumbered men by a ratio of two to one at United Arab Emirates University.

The extensive changes to Emirati women’s traditional rights and roles have been one of the most visible transformations taking place in the UAE throughout its almost forty years of modern history. In fact, the UAE government has recently described ‘the evolution and growing prominence of Emirati women as partners and contributors (. . .) nation-building process’ as the development that perhaps best illustrates the country’s achievements. This assessment is complemented by the UAE state’s declared goal that, through example, it aims ‘to establish a new benchmark for gender empowerment in the region’.