Arab women in leadership posts must get time to prove themselves

Abu Dhabi: Arab women in leading positions must be given time and trust to succeed, said a top Lebanese official.

"Arab men's views about women in decision-making positions will start changing when they experience women's work closely, they must take their time to witness the difference newly appointed women are making," Randa Barri, vice-president of the National Authority for Lebanese Women Affairs told Gulf News on Wednesday on the side lines of the Second Women's Conference in Abu Dhabi.

"Arab society in general has its own views about women," she said.

"I think the most important thing when appointing women in a leading position is for her to be qualified enough and capable enough of making decisions. She must be creative and stand on a solid ground of experience," she said.

When women in leadership posts are not qualified enough, they won't be accepted and the traditional view about them will remain, she said. Randa, who is the wife of the Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, said "political security hides behind it all the security needed to empower women and human beings in general.

"We need to develop political awareness and a culture of accepting others in order to secure people in the Arab world," she said.

Randa criticised Arab intellectuals who go abroad to take part in the international panels to discuses international matters when they are not capable of participating in open dialogues in their own countries.

"How can we achieve strategies and plans while we are facing an issue with accepting others?" she asked.

Randa further said: "Policies must cover poverty and illiteracy that has spread widely in the Arab world and then involve people in the new concept about human security. I think political and military security will cover all kind of securities."

She gave an example of Lebanese women who could not empower themselves because of political instability.