The women’s majlis: Let’s look at rights for single women

As a woman living in this part of the world, I’m used to certain attitudes in society. I’m used to personal questions from total strangers in public. Depending on the strangers’ speculation on my age, they’ll ask questions such as: where am I studying? What I am studying? When will I graduate? What’s my grade-point average? Why isn’t my GPA higher? Why am I majoring in an area that has a dead-end career? Why aren’t I married? The constant drill continues until I feel suffocated.

Sadly, sometimes I question my own moral beliefs. These questions penetrate so deep into my private life that I wonder why I even bother to answer. Women are judged to the extent that people are ready to treat us like an object that requires “fixing”.

Since its dawn, the UAE and its leadership have seen immense potential in women. They have worked with families, changing their mindsets to allow women to compete in all arenas, such as education, health care and politics. The country went to the extent of providing land, housing, facilities and social financial aid to women in need from different age groups. In return, women are accepting new challenges, and are leading the way. Women comprise 70 per cent of college graduates in the UAE, and 43 per cent of the workforce.

When deciding whom to vote for in the current ­Federal National ­Council elections, I turned to candidates who were trying to voice the concerns of women. However, I found participants focusing on married women, discussing issues such as maternity leave, nurseries in work places and the importance of breastfeeding hours. These are necessary, but what about single women? I’m yet to find a candidate who voices my concerns. For example, I can’t even have a maid without the consent of my family book owner, which is typically the father or husband, and that’s taken from the household-maid immigration quota. There are certain rights that unmarried women don’t get until they’re 30.

The absence of the voice of all the single women in the UAE is a reflection of the society’s mindset, which gives more importance to married women. We need to go back to the basics and do what our leaders did during the inception of the country. We need influencing individuals who represent our voices and have the power and charisma to explain to families how important it is to let their daughters have free will. We need laws that allow women to marry whom they want, study what they want, and introduce the correct meaning of being an independent woman. Society needs to stop looking at me as just a gender box I check on each form I fill in. I’m a human with dreams and a soul, and frowning upon my life decisions shouldn’t be socially acceptable.

* Hessa Al Balooshi

Hessa Al Balooshi is a budding writer who hopes to become an Arabic mystery novelist.

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