Women’s advance takes many steps

Michelle Obama's plea to educate the 62 million girls worldwide who are not in school was based on a challenge to the values that entrench gender inequality. Half a world away in Canada, newly minted prime minister Justin Trudeau was doing effectively the same thing when he announced that women will make up half of his new cabinet. When asked why, he replied: "Because it's 2015."

The factor linking these two apparent extremes is about girls and women being able to achieve their full potential. In between these examples, there are women at every level of society, employment and government who struggle to achieve as much as their abilities would support.

While getting even a basic education and high-profile ministerial appointments are both crucial to breaking these barriers, it is equally important to make the path easier for all women at every level.

The UAE can claim to be at the forefront of this, with more Emirati women earning university degrees than men and with women serving in high levels of government, the judiciary and in business. The beneficiaries of this policy are not just the individual women involved but also the country as a whole because harnessing a wider range of opinions and life experiences almost inevitably leads to better decisions being made.

The question now is how can we do better. As Mrs Obama noted, girls will not get better education until the societies in which they live place greater value on women’s intellectual contributions and take their safety seriously. Mr Trudeau in turn has appointed a cabinet that he said reflects modern Canada, comprising not just 15 women but also a range of ethnicities, age groups and social backgrounds. His predecessor’s long reign made this easier because after nearly 10 years in power, few of Mr Trudeau’s Liberal politicians have any experience of being in government.

In the UAE too, the challenge has to be how to improve Emirati women’s prospects. Being among the best in the region is not enough: we need to compare ourselves to the best in the world. Making workplaces more friendly to women’s needs – such as improved maternity leave – has to be a priority and will allow them to balance home and work more easily. We all win if this happens.