I’m part of the delegation representing our university at the Women as Global Leaders conference that’s hosted by Zayed University. Zayed University is the newest of three government sponsored higher education institutes in the UAE. The campus is beautiful and is designed by German architect Hari Teherani.
Our group was warmly hosted by three young female Emirati students reading international relations. The conversations with the girls were very candid. One of the girls said she would not consider getting married before she was 26. This has to be taken into the context of the traditional Arab society and the acceptability of pregnant students coming on to campus. Another, already married, said she would never allow her husband to take more than one wife. This woman was also had a tattoo on the wrists, well-manicured nails, an jewelled iPhone, beautiful gold studded bag and matching shoes. But her friend, on the contrary, said she would not mind husband taking more than one wife if he treated his wives fairly.
Touring the campus, we visited an art exhibition and a beautiful courtyard. We saw girls dressed in their black abaya smiling at us as we passed. Not all of them wore their shayla. The compound and feel was very modern. There was a queue in the on-campus nail bar, which even offers brazilian waxing!
While there is modernity and progressiveness, the campus is gender-segregated. The males and females have been designated their own buildings and classrooms. The library, for example, is co-shared. There are women and men’s days. Danah, one of our hosts, tells me that there was a commotion when the school wanted to have common library spaces. In actual fact, gender-segregated education is not uncommon in the UAE. Citizen children are required to attend gender-segregated schools through the sixth grade, the last grade of primary education.
The eye-opening occurrence, instead, is in the use of teleconferencing to circumvent the gender-segregation requirement. In this class we sat into, the professor teaching the class splits his time between the male and female campuses. The two genders take the same class at the same time, but at their respective male and female campuses.
When the professor is at one gender’s campus, the other gender group is connected to his lecture via a teleconference system. Questions either gender group has are raised through a microphone that connects them to a common PA system. It seems like a system built around traditional rules that is working well.
Taking into account the gender segregation, however, it was odd that our group sat into the male class. We were also accompanied by the three female students. The students definitely did not seem uncomfortable seeing the other gender in their class. And if you thought about it, interaction between the two genders is inescapable when students come of age to enter the workforce. I would posit that the practice of gender segregation is a matter of upholding a tradition that might have become a rule. The need to uphold this tradition is problematized by the moral tones which the practice of gender segregation has come to have. I am beginning to think the idea of protecting females from the sexual advances from males is no longer relevant. Because if that is the case, then effort should be channelled into legal reform that protects females or males from any form of harassment. In fact, I think there actually is a lot of deep seated bias in the whole perspective of gender relations. This exists in many places around the world. Interestingly, the females can see the male video stream, but the males cannot see the females.
