A day to celebrate UAE women

Emirati Women’s Day is a moment to look back at achievements – and look forward

Emirati women are performing to the highest standards. Reem Mohammed / The National

‘This is the success that we have sought and we have made great effort to see.” These were the words of Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairperson of the General Women’s Union, President of the Family Development Foundation, and Chairperson of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, on the occasion of Dunday’s Emirati Women’s Day.

Sheikha Fatima was speaking to our sister newspaper Aletihad on the role of Emirati women in society. Over the course of last week, we ran a series of interviews with prominent Emirati women, highlighting their contributions. Businesswomen and designers, poets, athletes and managers; we featured them to highlight the many roles, and role models, Emirati women are filling.

Yet while it important to recognise the women at the top, it is equally important to think of all the many others who work, day in and day out, to make companies, institutions and homes successful. Recall that, for example, the banking sector in the UAE is 37.5 per cent female, or that Emirati women occupy 66 per cent of general government jobs. The success of the most prominent is merely the tip of the iceberg. Across the seven Emirates, Emirati women are performing to the highest standards.

This is as it should be. From the very birth of the country, Sheikh Zayed put the position of women at the heart of the national project. The project of building the UAE could not have been accomplished without the women of the country. Indeed, the opportunities for education, employment and advancement that were offered have been enthusiastically taken. As far as the country has come, there is still room for more. Speaking of Emirati women, Sheikha Fatima said: “We await a lot from them, and we continue to remove the obstacles and to support and prepare the appropriate circumstances, inspired by the values and ethics of our religion and the principles of our leadership and our heritage.”

That must be the guiding principle in the coming years. Recognising how far the country has come, but working steadily to offer more opportunities in the workplace, more options for advancement, greater childcare, greater opportunities for education.

Today’s Emirati Women’s Day is a celebration, but it is also a preparation, for many years and decades of continued involvement and leadership from the women of the UAE.