The Qatari Forum for Authors – within the campaign “Let your thoughts flow through your pen”, organized a new lecture entitled “Empowering Women for Leadership Positions” by
Dr. Bothania Al-Ansari. She began her lecture with a historical overview of the beginning of the demand for women’s empowerment, explaining that the beginning of interest in this new concept and the role of women began globally in the last quarter of the twentieth century. As for the Arab countries, this topic began to be raised in the last two decades, in conjunction with the technological developments, where the discussion of the role of women in the development of society through their participation in the labor market began. Since women had their contributions in the fields of sustainable development and charitable and voluntary works, they became ready to enter the arena of politics. The discovery of oil and gas in the Arab countries, she indicated, played a major role in supporting the ambitions of women to participate in public life.
Al-Ansari considered that Qatar Vision 2030 had a great role in ensuring the empowerment of Qatari women, as they cut great strides in the economic, social and political renaissance. Moreover, many Qatari women assumed important positions in health, foreign affairs and the Shura Council, bringing the percentage of women’s participation in various sectors to 30%, according to the reports issued by the Planning and Monitoring Authority for the year 2019. There are special characteristics of women, she pointed out, that distinguish them from men, which are flexibility and the involvement of various parties in decision-making, as women are not rigid, but creative and innovative, in addition to their acceptance of teamwork. She further stressed the need to enable the leading woman to master the art of public speaking and persuasion.
Al-Ansari enumerated the factors that help women to assume leadership positions, the most important of which is the existence of community awareness of the need to empower women and enable them to assume leadership positions and the provision of social support by schools and society, especially by the family, to help her be a leadership figure capable of assuming leadership positions. She identified the obstacles that hinders the ability of women to assume leadership positions according to studies conducted in 2013, which proved that 65% of the obstacles are related to the social environment, as decision-makers do not encourage women to reach some positions, and some legislations in some states do not do justice to women and do not help them to participate with man in decision-making as well as some religious beliefs, which become known as the glass barrier, addressed by many research and studies in this regard.