Stephanie McMahon has spent most of her life around professional wrestling.
She is the daughter of WWE chairman and chief executive Vincent McMahon – a fourth-generation wrestling promoter. She is the chief brand officer of the company, but has also appeared on television as a wrestler and manager.
Over the years, McMahon, 43, has continued to be vocal about the need for morerepresentation, not only in the ring but in all areas of the wrestling industry. Recently, WWE hired its first woman in the role of general manager in Latin America and also brought in a woman as chief financial officer. While that's a start, she admits more work needs to be done.
When asked about the writers who put together the storylines, she says the company is still struggling for a more even playing field.
"We do not have enough. We do not have enough female writers in the writers' room, we are actively working on that.
“There is a dedicated focus to how we tell our women's storylines in the show, but we can always be better."
Pro wrestling used to largely be considered a male-dominated industry – from the fans to the talent and from writers to the stage crew. But McMahon says she's seen a transformation over the years, starting with the fan base.
“I’ve grown up in WWE so I have a bit of a different story than your typical executive, but I have seen our female fan base grow to now nearly 40 per cent,” she says. “I have seen little girls in our audiences wearing all the merchandise of our female superstars – and little boys, too, by the way. I’ve definitely seen a huge growth in our business.”
One reason for the increase in female fans is because more women wrestlers are getting opportunities to shine in the ring.
"Throughout the years, we've seen women's wrestling ebb and flow. In the Attitude Era, it was thought that our women were 'nice to have' not a 'need to have'. They weren't featured as main events, they were in various other roles," she says.
When once they competed in three-minute "squash matches" or were used in only managerial roles to male wrestlers, they now headline main events including, most notably, WWE's biggest annual show of the year, WrestleMania.
In 2019, Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey faced off against one another in a historic triple-threat main event match in front of 82,000 fans.
Wrestling buffs will already know that Flair and Lynch are part of The Four Horsewomen of WWE: the female take on The Four Horsemen wrestling stable of the 1980s and 1990s. They're joined by Sasha Banks and Bayley, and are viewed as leading the way in a groundbreaking era for women's wrestling.
This is something McMahon also credits her husband, Paul Levesque, for helping to bring about. He is responsible for the training and development of all WWE's future stars, as well as recruitment. Also known as Triple H, Levesque uses his knowledge of the business to help women wrestlers nurture their skills in the ring and on the microphone, but perhaps even more importantly, to train them in the same way as the men.
"He started recruiting elite female athletes, as well as men, and he started training the women the same as the men, giving them the same amount of match time on television at our live events," McMahon says. "These women, when given the opportunity, absolutely started to steal the show every time, [to the point] our fans started chanting 'this is wrestling' and 'women's wrestling'."
Even more notable over the past few years is how women wrestlers have started to be received internationally. Back in 2017, Banks and Alexa Bliss competed in the first women's match in Abu Dhabi. Only two years later, Natalya, and Lacey Evans, took part in the first women's match in Saudi Arabia.
"Our first women's match in Abu Dhabi took us six years to be able to have," McMahon says. "And during that match, the audience of both men and women started chanting 'this is hope', which is not your typical WWE chant.
"Then we had not one, but two women's matches in Saudi Arabia where the chant simply became 'this is awesome'. And that's really where we are today in terms of the evolution of women in our business and I couldn't be more proud of them, our fans and, of course, WWE."
Islamophobia definition
A widely accepted definition was made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims in 2019: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” It further defines it as “inciting hatred or violence against Muslims”.
Dr Graham's three goals
Short term
Establish logistics and systems needed to globally deploy vaccines
Intermediate term
Build biomedical workforces in low- and middle-income nations
Long term
A prototype pathogen approach for pandemic preparedness
Other workplace saving schemes
- The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
- Dubai’s savings retirement scheme for foreign employees working in the emirate’s government and public sector came into effect in 2022.
- National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
- In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
- Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
About Takalam
Date started: early 2020
Founders: Khawla Hammad and Inas Abu Shashieh
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech and wellness
Number of staff: 4
Funding to date: Bootstrapped
Smart words at Make Smart Cool
Make Smart Cool is not your usual festival. Dubbed “edutainment” by organisers Najahi Events, Make Smart Cool aims to inspire its youthful target audience through a mix of interactive presentation by social media influencers and a concert finale featuring Example with DJ Wire. Here are some of the speakers sharing their inspiration and experiences on the night.
Prince Ea
With his social media videos accumulating more half a billion views, the American motivational speaker is hot on the college circuit in the US, with talks that focus on the many ways to generate passion and motivation when it comes to learning.
Khalid Al Ameri
The Emirati columnist and presenter is much loved by local youth, with writings and presentations about education, entrepreneurship and family balance. His lectures on career and personal development are sought after by the education and business sector.
Ben Ouattara
Born to an Ivorian father and German mother, the Dubai-based fitness instructor and motivational speaker is all about conquering fears and insecurities. His talk focuses on the need to gain emotional and physical fitness when facing life’s challenges. As well managing his film production company, Ouattara is one of the official ambassadors of Dubai Expo2020.
The biog:
From: Wimbledon, London, UK
Education: Medical doctor
Hobbies: Travelling, meeting new people and cultures
Favourite animals: All of them
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
LUKA CHUPPI
Director: Laxman Utekar
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Cinema
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi, Vinay Pathak, Aparshakti Khurana
Rating: 3/5
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THE SPECS
Engine: 3.6-litre V6
Transmission: nine-speed automatic
Power: 310hp
Torque: 366Nm
Price: Dh200,000
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Most sought after workplace benefits in the UAE
- Flexible work arrangements
- Pension support
- Mental well-being assistance
- Insurance coverage for optical, dental, alternative medicine, cancer screening
- Financial well-being incentives
Young women have more “financial grit”, but fall behind on investing
In an October survey of young adults aged 16 to 25, Charles Schwab found young women are more driven to reach financial independence than young men (67 per cent versus. 58 per cent). They are more likely to take on extra work to make ends meet and see more value than men in creating a plan to achieve their financial goals. Yet, despite all these good ‘first’ measures, they are investing and saving less than young men – falling early into the financial gender gap.
While the women surveyed report spending 36 per cent less than men, they have far less savings than men ($1,267 versus $2,000) – a nearly 60 per cent difference.
In addition, twice as many young men as women say they would invest spare cash, and almost twice as many young men as women report having investment accounts (though most young adults do not invest at all).
“Despite their good intentions, young women start to fall behind their male counterparts in savings and investing early on in life,” said Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, senior vice president, Charles Schwab. “They start off showing a strong financial planning mindset, but there is still room for further education when it comes to managing their day-to-day finances.”
Ms Schwab-Pomerantz says parents should be conveying the same messages to boys and girls about money, but should tailor those conversations based on the individual and gender.
"Our study shows that while boys are spending more than girls, they also are saving more. Have open and honest conversations with your daughters about the wage and savings gap," she said. "Teach kids about the importance of investing – especially girls, who as we see in this study, aren’t investing as much. Part of being financially prepared is learning to make the most of your money, and that means investing early and consistently."
