Reflection 71 – Women VS. Men

Life is tough… And for some more than some!
Story time first .
I taught in three different places and in different stages of my life. My first official experience was during my PhD years. I worked as a teaching assistant and for some courses, I used to teach three sessions per week with a student size of maybe 60-7 students. A big percentage of students are second-generation Chinese students. I believe, if I am not mistaken, they represent around 60% of the total student body at UCI. In fact, people would joke and call it University of China instead of University of California. Irvine . Other than Chinese, I believe they are mostly Latinos and White Americans. Then, I taught in Qatar University as an assistant professor. Females represent around 70% of total student body the majority being Qataris. Other than that, there’s a small percentage of foreign students mainly Egyptians and Syrians. Finally, I taught as an assistant professor at AUC with the majority of students being Egyptians and a minute percentage of international students.
With no exception, girls perform way better than boys everywhere you go (sorry guys!). There’s a clear distinction in their performance. Where you might get one or two guys maximum per class showing commitment and passion, you will probably have triple this number in girls. My teaching assistants have always been girls; I know that I can easily depend on them. They performed excellently in my classes as well as during their time as my teaching assistants. The logical question then becomes: what happens after university? If we take a cross-section probably from any country, we will find that usually men are usually more prevailing in leading positions and in general are more successful. Of course, this can be explained through various sociological factors such as job markets tend to be more biased towards men. For a big percentage of women, they either don’t enter the workforce because of marriage or have to quit their jobs for some years after having kids. So, there are several possible explanations for this phenomenon. but these days in specific, I believe that luck is greatly tilted away from women. Why?
Well, my current health condition and my recent interactions with several people have shown me that two types of women suffer enormously. The divorced and the widow. Ideally, both should get family support from fathers, brothers, or relatives. And if not, then from society. But let’s be honest here: this is very rare these days! Most women end up fighting on their own. For a (big) percentage of divorced women, if they don’t re-marry, they end up living a very tough life. In many cases, their ex’s abandon them (and maybe the kids also!), which means that they suddenly have to enter the tough job market to make ends meet. Same thing for widows. And for a decent percentage of those females, they never worked before because they were being taken care of from their husbands. This is more dramatic in the case of widows because of the SHOCK element of death. Therefore, they are suddenly asked to take care of their families and to work, especially if they don’t have the proper social support.
The end result is: Life is tough… And for some more than some!
Insha’Allah in a coming reflection, I will share my thoughts about what can be done. Stay tuned .
PS: I forgot to mention cases like mine . The case of a woman, who is married to someone who is out of work because of health issues. The same would apply!