Arab women should celebrate

Lebanese fashion entrepreneur Rasha Khouri has said that “Arab women should celebrate what they have achieved”, despite faced sexism and prejudice in the workplace. The designer, who runs the London-based DIA online fashion boutique, told Arabstoday: “Despite facing hardship and prejudice, women in the Arab world have made so much progress in recent years in terms of gaining prominent positions in various industries.” “We should really celebrate that, rather than just focusing on the negative,” she added. Khouri, a regularly campaigner at conferences on women’s rights across the Middle East, spoke about an event held earlier this month in Beirut focused on the increasing numbers of Arab women entrepreneurs. The New Arab Woman Forum ran a two-day event on March 1, discussing how the numbers of women starting their own businesses can be increased. “I can’t give you figures but I can say that working in the region the last few years, I have noticed an upward trend of women starting their own enterprises. It’s great to see and I think it’s mainly because women are finding new ways to fit in work around their families,” said Khouri. “I think events like these are a great way to raise awareness about what women are achieving. We aren’t just sitting there and talking about the struggles that women face, we are encouraging women to overcome them,” she said in reference to the NAWF conference. “It is also a great place for Arab women to meet and network with other professionals which I think is a great confidence boost,” she added. Speaking about the main obstacle facing Arab women who hope to start their own businesses or career, Khouri said: “Intimidation from men is the biggest factor. Many men still feel women don’t belong in the workplace and as a result women feel shy in juggling their roles as professionals, mothers and wives.” Beirut-born Khouri spent her childhood travelling between London, New York, Beirut and London. After a science degree from the prestigious Brown University in America, she worked as an investment banker for several years before starting her own business. In 2010, she launched DIA-style.com, a luxury fashion retail website in English and Arabic aimed at the Arab market. It has since gone from strength to strength, in terms of sales and media attention. “I am really happy with the response that we’ve received in the region. You have to understand that many Arabs, including those who are wealthy, are still in the earlier stages of using the internet to shop. Therefore our website is first in the Arab world to offer this service,” said Khouri. Khouri believes that e-commerce is set to be a huge growth industry in the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf states and Lebanon, which have an emerging wealthy middle class. She hopes that women will take advantage of this by setting up their own online enterprises. “There is huge potential to capitalise on the region still budding interest in online shopping”, she said. “A lot of women ask me how they can start a business like mine and I always advise them that networking and work experience are key. In the Middle East, functions such as accounting, HR and PR are still relatively new so it helps meeting other entrepreneurs and leading figures in your industry to see how they work,” she added.