Palestinian women make strides in high-tech

[P F Tinmore]

You gatta love Palestinian women as they break out of the ME mold.
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DURA, West Bank (AP) — Growing up in a traditional society, Abeer Abu Ghaith was often told a woman's future is in her husband's kitchen. Quietly, the 29-year-old proved everyone wrong.

Abu Ghaith has become the first female high-tech entrepreneur in the West Bank, setting up an Internet employment brokerage and software development firm. Last month, the Palestinian trailblazer was recognized by regional high-tech leaders as a recipient of the Women in Technology Awards in the Middle East and Africa for 2014.

Abu Ghaith has put in 16-hour days, showing how the local IT and communications sector can transform the lives of other women by giving them access to jobs and financial independence. Some say the sector, the most vibrant in an otherwise stagnant economy, could double in size over the next five years and employ thousands more.

Yahoo!

 

[Kondor3]

This is good news, Tinny. It is always good news when women are able to break out of the mold in any region that is reknowned for its archaic attitudes towards and practical repression of women and womens' rights and equality.

The unfortunate part is that such a 'mold' still exists anywhere, this deep into the 21st, never mind in a more well-exposed, Western-familiar region such as those portions of the Middle East that ring the southeastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.

And, of course, such an accomplishment would be next-to-impossible in Gaza, given their ongoing bare-knuckles fighting with Israel - as compared to the anxious and resentful and demonstrative but (as of recent years) relatively calm West Bank.

Something only possible in a (compariatively) more peaceful setting that is not lobbing rockets at its adversary and foolishly inviting counter-battery fire on a routine basis.

This sounds very much like the kind of kudos that made news here in the States in the 60s and 70s and 80s as female entrepreneur -run startups were given some special attention in the media, and it's encouraging to see this unfolding, late or no, in yet another segment of the Muslim population of the world, and that influential region.

And, of course, none of these circumstances should be allowed to detract from the nature of the vision and imagination and organizational skills and courage and hard work of this women entrepreneur, operating under difficult political and economic conditions, and contrasting with a religious and cultural and tradition-saturated setting that is not known for encouraging and empowering women in such matters.

People who succeed against long odds deserve their 15 minutes of fame and a shout-out.

Nice catch.

Thank you.

 

[toastman]

Good for them

Hopefully other women in the area (and of course the whole ME), are taking note that women can thrive in any field just like men, and that their future is not in the kitchen

 

[Phoenall]

You gatta love Palestinian women as they break out of the ME mold.
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DURA, West Bank (AP) — Growing up in a traditional society, Abeer Abu Ghaith was often told a woman's future is in her husband's kitchen. Quietly, the 29-year-old proved everyone wrong.

Abu Ghaith has become the first female high-tech entrepreneur in the West Bank, setting up an Internet employment brokerage and software development firm. Last month, the Palestinian trailblazer was recognized by regional high-tech leaders as a recipient of the Women in Technology Awards in the Middle East and Africa for 2014.

Abu Ghaith has put in 16-hour days, showing how the local IT and communications sector can transform the lives of other women by giving them access to jobs and financial independence. Some say the sector, the most vibrant in an otherwise stagnant economy, could double in size over the next five years and employ thousands more.

Yahoo!

Not quite what you claim is it, she is not an IT specialist at all just a middle "man" who finds work for IT specialists and has some people developing software. Yes she broke the mould for being a woman in charge of men but that is not that rare in the West Bank were they have many Israeli role models.