Introduction
Gender discrimination is one of the leading social issues of concern in the Middle Eastern countries as most women are fighting for their rights to achieve gender parity in the different aspects of the society including education, employment, and political participation among others. Middle Eastern countries are traditionally male-dominated; this has primarily contributed to the continued oppression of women in the form unequal employment policies, limited access to education, as well as the excessive influence of men on such issues as women marriages among others. The oppression of women in the countries is primarily associated with religion and culture; the dominant culture recognizes the role of women as that of homemakers, while the men are regarded as heads of the families and breadwinners. These factors significantly hinder women from actively participating in economic activities as well as political matters, mainly because the culture dictates that women are unfit for leadership positions. In recent years, the region has started implementing gender equality, and non-discriminatory principles promote the participation of women in economic activity. However, gender inequalities are still evident in practice, and the broader legislative framework and they are even limiting women from accessing career development and employment. Moreover, sectors that are female-dominated are not protected or regulated by the labor law provisions. Gender discrimination is detrimental to the development of the Middle Eastern region; this paper seeks to illustrate how specialists in the region rationalize gender discrimination and propose measures to combat the issue in a bid to promote gender parity and improved economic growth and development.
Background on Middle Eastern Culture
The main factors that define the culture of the Middle Eastern countries are religion and language. There are three dominant languages corresponding to the three major ethnic groups found in the region, including Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Arabic is the most spoken language within the region, although learned individuals often speak such foreign languages as French and English. The dominant religion is Islam, which is further divided into Shi’i Islam and Sunni Islam. Shi’i Islam is mainly found in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran ( Korotayev, Issaev & Shishkina, 2015) . Christianity is also practiced by some Arabs, particularly the Greeks of Cyprus in Lebanon. The Middle Eastern society is predominantly patriarchal, and men influence the moral and ethical standards that shape the gender identities of both men and women within the social context.
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The patriarchal system largely contributes to the discrimination of women due to the strict rules that surround family relations; according to Haghighat (2013), women in the region do not have the same rights as men in terms of making decisions, travelling, marriage or divorce, accessing wealth or receiving an inheritance, pursuing a profession, or heading a family. For instance, in regions such as Libya and Jordan, women are still required to get authorization from their fathers or husbands if they consider getting into employment. The region’s culture is also characterized by protective labor laws that restrict the sectors that women can work in as well as their working hours. Further, the culture recognizes men as breadwinners, while women are socially expected to perform housework. These factors contribute to the increased preference to hire and promote men into leadership positions in most sectors. On the other hand, women who opt to venture into entrepreneurship face such gender-specific challenges as business registration, limited freedom of movement, and difficulties in accessing financing. In addition, properties in the region are primarily in men’s names and the unequal ownership and access to family assets extensively limit the economic development of women.
Middle Eastern Gender Roles
Gender roles are affirmed upon the concept of females as homemakers and males as breadwinners. Men possess direct access to formal employment and control over the critical means of production while women are extensively dependent on the male members of their families. Family statutes and laws further reinforce the gender roles by requiring women to obtain permission from their husbands or fathers before they can travel, start a business, seek a loan, or get employment. Moreover, the laws also support the idea of women getting a lesser share of the family wealth, therefore reinforcing the idea that women should depend on the men.
In most Middle Eastern countries the availability of cheap foreign labor and oil wealth has primarily contributed to the reinforcement of the traditional cultural values and norms that determine the place of the woman in the society, and her social and family acceptable professions. According to Meriwether (2018), gender roles in the region are mainly enforced through the interaction of the conservative culture and the economic structure of the region, further contributing to the low levels of female participation in the labor force as well as their low levels of education. The predefined gender roles and gender constraints determine the socio-cultural contexts in which women are expected to operate to a great extent.
Karshenas, Moghadam, and Chamlou (2016) observe that another aspect that profoundly defines gender roles in modern times in the region is access to education. Girls in the region rarely access the same education as boys, and in most cases, they pursue fields of study that are considered predominantly female, further reinforcing the set gender roles within the Middle Eastern culture. Gender, in this context, refers to a socio-political definition of men and women from the perspective of how they function within societies, and it mainly pertains to the social organization of the sex differences. Some of the significant factors that influence gender include social class, economic power, political status, and ethnicity.
Several programs that designate a practical perspective of women and their relationship to family responsibilities emphasize the prescribed gender roles in the region. The education system possesses several aspects of the curricula that tend to reinforce the culturally prescribed gender inequality and gender roles. The fact that administering the education system mostly promotes gender roles is a clear indication that the Middle Eastern society is not open. Al-Rasheed (2013) p ostulates that despite the fact that gender stereotyping starts at very young ages in the family units, the education system is the main factor responsible for further promoting, defining, and promoting the notion. Government agendas and regulations are the major factors that influence the ability of women to break from tradition, develop leadership skills, and promote change. Given that the government determines the school curriculum since it is responsible for the educational agendas, it influences the development of stereotypes and gender roles that regard men as the primary breadwinners, and therefore the superiority assigned to the men in the region.
Zuhur (2016) p osits that the view that the education system in the Middle Eastern countries fuels the notion that men are superior to women as illustrated in the existing radical feminist literature on gender and education. The literature demonstrates that the formal curricula, textbooks, teaching methods, and the component subjects extensively support the idea that men are superior. Moreover, Meriwether (2018) notes that the hidden curricula further reinforce the concept of gender roles through the attitudes, the behavior of teachers towards learners. Such attitudes as the expectations of female and male achievement, regulation, and school structures play a vital role in the differentiation of gender roles. The gender roles in this context are highly institutionalized via the socialization mechanism where boys and girls are mostly segregated and equally excluded from pursuing particular subjects. Textbooks tend to indicate stereotypical student performance expectations and roles clearly.
On the other hand, teacher training programs openly promote gender stereotypes in a similar manner as the management and organization of schools. The fact that most schools in the region are managed through a hierarchy that is male-dominated is a clear indication that the school system influences gender roles to a great extent. Female teachers are mainly engaged in teaching subjects that are considered less important and in such tasks as counseling, contacting parents on various issues, and organizing social events, while men play the role of head teachers and taking charge of resource allocation, examinations, and curricula.
In most Middle Eastern countries, it is clear that boys and girls have a distinct subject that society expects them to perform, therefore making gender roles explicit through the process of learning. For instance, clothing and textile and graphic design are meant for girls only, while printing, hotel management, livestock resources, and agriculture are restricted to boys ( Meriwether, 2018) . In addition, the education system places more emphasis on boys pursuing religious education at higher levels than on girls. The type of religious education is similar to that of general and primary secondary levels in terms of admission age and duration of the study. The curriculum strongly emphasizes on Islamic studies to prepare men with a proper background in religious studies. Conversely, in the case of women, they are neither encouraged nor admitted in such programs to learn about their faith in more comprehensive detail. Other key elements that tend to reinforce gender inequalities and gender roles is the level of economic need whereby in such regions as Saudi Arabia where availability of adequate wealth has led to the maintenance of women studies and employment within the traditional confines, which is a restriction that is further reinforced by the political opposition of ending gender segregation and women emancipation. In regions such as Jordan, increased integration of women into the labor force is mainly as a result of labor shortages. From this perspective, women are illustrated as unequal contributors to economic development since they are largely excluded from participating in the development of their nations.
How do Middle Eastern specialists rationalize gender discrimination?
Gender discrimination is highly detrimental to the Middle Eastern region since it hinders the crucial contribution of women into the region's development. The region demonstrates the highest level of injustice and imbalance between men and women with the great gender-based violence being the critical evidence of the inequality. According to Cuberes and Teignier (2014), the region is ranked among the least gender-equal globally, estimating that it will take approximately 365 years for the region to attain gender balance. Gender-based discrimination in social norms and laws is estimated to cost the region approximately US$575 billion annually ( Cuberes & Teignier, 2014) . However, there have been efforts to promote gender equality by implementing new laws, especially after the Arab Spring uprisings that emerged in 2011.
Despite the progress towards enhancing gender parity in the region, which has enabled a significant number of women of women to secure employment in the civil service, women are still discriminated against since they mainly assume jobs that pay the least, unlike men. Kemp (2013) a rgues that gender discrimination is mostly ingrained in the institutions that are expected to eliminate the gender inequalities that perpetuate the Middle Eastern societies. Specialists in these institutions, including teachers, lawyers, and political leaders play a central role in rationalizing the existing gender inequalities in a number of ways. First, most leadership positions in different organizations are held by men, who demonstrate extreme attitudes that are stereotypically sexist towards women, especially regarding their role within the home and workplace settings ( Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2016) . A large proportion of men who hold such positions still support diverse inequitable and traditional attitudes towards women, such as beliefs that portray women as unfit to be leaders, the idea that women should only perform household duties, and the belief that educating boys is more important than educating girls. These factors mainly contribute to the low participation of women in the labor market.
Secondly, specialists in the education system play a central in rationalizing gender discrimination through curriculum development, the learning materials, and performance expectations. According to Kemp (2013), the curricula in the region demonstrates inequality through such elements as designating some subjects as purely for boys while others are for girls. There are subjects or courses that boys are discouraged from taking since they are considered feminine and vice versa. Moreover, textbooks and other teaching materials strengthen the belief that men are superior to women through the examples given or through illustrating that boys are expected to perform better than girls in the classroom. The expectations of teachers and attitudes towards learners also play a central role in rationalizing gender discrimination, where most teachers openly show that they expect boys to achieve better grades than girls. Additionally, the fact that males head most schools reinforces the idea that women are incapable of managing leadership positions, and their primary role is in homemaking and performing junior tasks.
Aspects such as portraying some subjects or courses as feminine or masculine extensively fuels gender discrimination since it dictates the roles that each gender should play once they complete their education. Encouraging girls to pursue courses such as clothing and textiles and encouraging boys to continue engineering and hotel management among others largely dictate the position of the woman in the society as dependent on the male relatives since the jobs associated with the feminine courses are less paying compared to the male-dominated courses ( Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2016) . Insisting on girls pursuing female dominated courses also denies women opportunities to pursue well-paying careers or positions that pay well, therefore restricting them to junior positions that involve not only simple tasks but also offer little room for career progression.
Thirdly, politicians and individuals responsible for making and implementing laws such as lawyers rationalize gender discrimination by creating laws that fail to promote gender parity. For instance, family laws in nearly all the countries in the region encourage inequality by supporting the idea that females should get a smaller share of family wealth ( Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2016) . Although the region has started implementing policies to promote gender equality, there are insufficient laws to encourage sharing of wealth equally between men and women. Other laws that help to rationalize gender discrimination include employment laws. The regulations mostly limit women from participating in the labor force since they require women to get the approval of their husbands or fathers before they can be employed due to the highly restrictive culture. On the other hand, women wishing to pursue self-employment through entrepreneurship face such challenges as limited legislation in the areas they seek to pursue. Lack of regulation in such areas exposes them to such risks as exploitation in terms of compensation and losses among others.
Fourth, human resource managers in different organizations in the region rationalize gender discrimination through their preference to hire men. Most individuals holding such positions as management in organizations are men and they largely determine who gets employed to perform what task. According to Al-Waqfi and Abdalla Al-faki (2015) men in the Middle Eastern countries are socialized from a very tender age to believe that they are different from women and that their position in the society is superior. The idea is further reinforced through the concept of segregating boys and girls or women and men, which is a common element in the Muslim faith, the dominant religion in the region. Since men are primarily socialized to believe that they are superior and they should provide for their families while women work within the home, human resource managers, who are mainly men tend to prefer hiring men, whose principal responsibility involves providing for their families. Conversely, women are less preferred for employment in organizations since most managers already have the stereotype that women are expected to work at home and take care of the children, which makes them unfit to work in the formal environment that pertains rising to leadership positions.
Presently, human resource managers are increasingly considering employing women to ensure that they align with the region’s goal to achieve gender parity ( Kemp, 2013) . However, due to the existing stereotypes that women cannot perform better than men, women are often assigned light duties or tasks that are considered feminine. Women are rarely promoted to positions of power or assigned leadership or managerial roles. These stereotypes are often developed through the education system where girls are considered to perform more unfortunate than the boys, despite putting little effort to enhance the performance of girls. On the other hand, human resource managers face challenges in getting qualified women to fill up the different positions required to achieve gender parity in the organizations since women rarely pursue courses that can help them secure formal employment in well-established organizations.
Conclusion
With the growing globalization and increased enlightenment of women, different groups and movements have emerged to fight for gender equality and change the traditional role of the woman as a homemaker. Gender discrimination is considered a form of social oppression since it prevents people from living their ideal lives and achieving their full potential. Most Western countries are close to achieving gender parity; however, the Middle Eastern countries and those in North Africa still demonstrate considerable gaps in terms of the privileges accessible to men and those available for women. The weaknesses are evident in the education system where learning is considered a key priority for boys and not girls as well as defining female and male appropriate courses or subjects, therefore denying both genders an opportunity to pursue what they love at the expense of what the society expects ( Cuberes & Teignier, 2014) . The gaps are also evident in employment, whereby most organizations still show a preference for male employees over the female ones. Rarely are women promoted into managerial positions or assigned political posts.
However, the region is increasingly embracing the need to promote gender parity through the amendment of laws to encourage organizations to hire more women, promote equal access to education for both boys and girls, and increasing the level of women participation in political matters and positions. Despite these efforts, more needs to be done if the region is to eliminate gender discrimination in the future. One of the primary factors that should be considered to achieve this objective is breaking down the existing cultural barriers by eliminating gender-specific subjects in schools and encouraging women together with men and vice versa. Community empowerment and career guidance programs are vital in breaking down the barriers especially in helping the society to redefine the roles of women and girls in the society.
Other strategies include updating the existing labor laws to mitigate the discrimination against women at the workplace by reinforcing sanctions and monitoring to minimize the gaps between labor laws and labor practices. Further, the government should consider such provisions as childcare and maternity leave as well as providing employers with incentives so that they can support remote working, part-time employment, and flexible working hours. Moreover, the government and employers should focus on creating safe environments for women to work in by enforcing strict sexual harassment laws, penalizing and punishing offenders, as well as enhancing public transport ( Al-Waqfi & Abdalla Al-faki, 2015) . The government should also minimize the barriers that women face in entrepreneurship by implementing policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of marital status or sex, support equal access to finance, improving financial education among women, and encouraging credit registries among women. Women should also be allowed equal rights to owning assets and reconsider the existing inheritance laws to promote gender equality. Additionally, legal professionals and judges should consider reinforcing awareness regarding the rights of women and improving access to justice systems among women. Furthermore, the governments in the region should focus on aligning personal status codes with the non-discrimination and gender equality principles that resonate with the international commitments and national conventions.
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