真正的中东革命：女性进军商界

    谢赫•鲁卜娜毕业于加州州立大学奇科分校(Cal State Chico)，自诩为电脑极客，她从凤毛麟角的女软件设计师做起，推动了迪拜港务局（Dubai Port Authority）的现代化进程，最终升迁至阿拉伯联合酋长国首位女性内阁部长。她描述了这一奋斗历程中的无数不眠之夜与难熬的不安全感，并向全神贯注的听众们建议说，恐惧乃是强有力的动力来源：“正是它推动我不断向前走。”

    这位魅力出众的外贸部长很容易被误当成收费高昂的美国励志演讲家。可是，台下如饥似渴地消化她每一句话的女士们大多来自中东阿拉伯国家。在那里，失败被视为耻辱，而分享自己的恐惧更是闻所未闻的事。女性在这方面更是承受了双倍的压力，以至于中东女性的创业率在全球垫底。

    上周末在迪拜出席首届中东与北非商界女性网络（MENA Businesswomen's Network）论坛并致辞的鲁卜娜与其他一些人士携手，致力于用人脉、融资、指导乃至与陌生人座谈，分享个人经历过的挫折等商业语言来推动女性的权利。如果她们最终获得成功，它将是该地区暴风骤雨般的政治革命掩盖下一场静悄悄的经济革命。中东政治革命对女性的影响目前尚不清楚。

    华盛顿公益组织关键声音（Vital Voices）总裁阿丽瑟•尼尔森强调：“将焦点转移到经济议题上之后，商界女性能够更好地推动变革。” 关键声音过去五年来一直致力于促成中东与北非商界女性网络。这个联盟由500多家新企业中的2,500位商界女性共同组成。

    鲁卜娜的全名为谢赫•鲁卜娜•宾特•卡哈立德•阿尔•卡西米，除她之外，该地区的领袖们也开始重视这项事业，最突出的代表是在美国接受过教育、热衷驾驶吉普车的沙特阿拉伯公主阿米拉•阿尔-塔维尔。沙特禁止女性驾车，要求她们在隔离的设施中工作，且直到最近才允许她们在地方选举中享受选举权与被选举权。

    没人会低估这项事业面临的挑战。该地区成年女性中只有28%从事经济活动，比例世界最低，而其中绝大多数又聚集在低级别的岗位。根据世界银行（the World Bank）的统计，中东与北非的全部14个经济体中都存在区别对待男女的规则，而且该地区的公司中也只有17.4%聘请了高级经理人。美国非政府组织自由之家（Freedom House）认为原因在于“传统文化认为女性能力欠缺、理性不足且更适合做家务工作。”

    对那些想在家族生意之外运营企业的女士来说，文化偏见的压力尤其巨大。（一份调查显示，该地区女性为主要所有人的公司只占13%，不足世界平均水平的一半。）埃及企业家谢仁•阿拉姆指出：“通常家庭对女性持保护态度，不愿意让你抛头露面，承受市场力量的冲击。” 阿拉姆运营着一家旨在促进女性职业发展的组织。

    上周有逾两百位女高管和企业家汇聚一堂，聆听鲁卜娜和其他演讲者就如何对抗上述偏见所发表的高论，她们所处的行业从制造到数码服务无所不包。她们正在利比亚和黎巴嫩、阿联酋和埃及、摩洛哥和突尼斯等总共十个国家（不包括以色列）构建网络“枢纽”。

    Sheikha Lubna, self-described computer geek and Cal State Chico grad, describes the sleepless nights, and piercing insecurities, as she rose from lonely female software designer to Dubai Port Authority modernizer to the United Arab Emirates' first woman cabinet minister. Fear, she counsels a rapt audience, is a powerful motivator: "It's what pushed me further."

    The charismatic trade minister could be mistaken for a high-paid American motivational speaker. But the women hanging onto her every word are mostly from the Arab Middle East, where failure is a stigma -- and sharing your fear of it an alien language. That goes double for women here, whose entrepreneurship rates are the world's lowest.

    Lubna, who spoke at the inaugural forum of the MENA Businesswomen's Network here in Dubai late last week, is part of a small cohort determined to advance women's rights by talking the language of business: Networking, accessing capital, mentoring, and even sharing personal setbacks with a room full of strangers. If they succeed, it will be a quiet economic evolution that takes place in the shadow of the region's stormy political revolutions, where it's unclear how women will fare.

    "By shifting to the focus to economic issues, business women will be positioned to better push for reform," insists Alyse Nelson, president of Vital Voices, the Washington group that has spent the past five years helping build the MENA BWN, a network of 2,500 businesswomen that has spawned some 500 new enterprises.

    In addition to Lubna (whose full name is Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid bin Sultan Al Qasimi) , other leaders in the region are taking up the cause, most prominently the Jeep-driving, American-educated Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel of Saudia Arabia. Saudi Arabia prohibits women from driving; they must also work in segregated facilities, and were only recently granted the right to vote and run in municipal elections.

    No one underestimates the challenge. Only about 28% of the adult female population is economically active -- the lowest in the world -- and most of those women are concentrated in low-level positions. According to the World Bank, different rules for men and women exist in all 14 economies in the Middle East and North Africa, and only 17.4% of firms in the region employ a high-level manager. Freedom House cites "cultural perceptions that women are less capable, more irrational, and better suited for domestic responsibilities."

    The cultural bias is especially hard for women who want to run an enterprise outside the family business. (One survey found women as principal owners in just 13% of firms, less than half the world average.) "Usually families are protective of women. They don't want you to be exposed, to take the brunt of the market forces," says Egyptian entrepreneur Shereen Allam, who also runs an association to foster female professional development.

    As executives and owners of businesses ranging from manufacturing to digital services, the more than two hundred women who gathered here last week to hear from Lubna and others push against that tide. They are building network "hubs" in Libya and Lebanon, the Emirates and Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia -- 10 countries in all (Israel is not part of the network).