NAYA | International Women’s Day panel event: Women on the RISE

BEIRUT: In honor of International Women’s Day, The Department of Communication Arts at the Lebanese American University, in collaboration with the Arab Institute for Women (AiW); hosted on March 7 a panel discussion titled: “Women on the RISE.”

The panel features sustainable women development experts and businesswomen to discuss their approaches to create and lead sustainable enterprises.

The speakers came from diverse organizations such as Enya Lenya, the Agricultural Workers Union, The Lebanese Communist Party, and Kohl Journal.

The event convened four inspirational women leaders from the academic, diplomatic, non-profit and political sector.

The panel shared perspectives on gender stereotyping in media especially but not exclusively.

“Women’s day is not only celebrated on the 8th of March, it’s also celebrated during the whole month of March, and should also be celebrated throughout the whole year, and on every single day,” said, Myriam Sfeir Murad, Director of the Ai, said.

Panelists shared with the audience their different expectations for women in their chosen fields and explained how stereotypes take place. They further explained how stereotypes, compensation gaps, and barriers to reaching leadership roles are just some of the gender-related issues and challenges that they have encountered in the workplace.

Amina Assi, from the Agricultural Workers Union, demonstrated how even though the media might have all the information of the gender issue in Lebanon, they aren’t truly highlighting the struggle, nothing is being fixed, and people are blind to it.

Ghiwa Sayegh, from Kohl journal, expressed her concern on how people are plaguing social media with the repetitive controversial issues, and although they’re being vocal about the issues, they’re only passively and unwillingly abiding by “gender” traditions, while they’re not actively trying to break gender inequality throughout their daily lives.

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