From the 2003 Oman Human Development Report's chapter on women

" With regard to discrimination against women in terms of wages, though there is no gender bias in the legal system – except on grounds of nature of work or educational attainment – but statistics of the household income and expenditure survey 1999-2000 show that women are being discriminated against in wages. The average monthly salary of the Omani women equals 96% of that of the Omani man. The ratio of women’s to men’s wage in the various regions and governorates of the Sultanate, excluding the Batinah, range between a minima of 69% in the Wusta region and a maxima of 97% in the Sharqiya. In the Batinah region women receive in average wages equal to 112% of that of men – may be because a high percentage of working women in this area hold higher educational qualifications (mostly teachers). It is obvious in general that discrimination in wages on the basis of sex is very limited. When comparing these disparities with parallel in other countries, they seem to be much less severe than in even developed countries. According to Human Development Report 1995, the ratio of female nonagricultural wage to male non-agricultural wage was 54% in Korea, 59% in China, 68% in Switzerland, 70% in the United Kingdom and 75% in the United States. The status of women in Oman seems to be much better with respect to discrimination in wages when compared to other Arab countries. While the ratio of female wage to male wage in Oman stood at 96% it was not more than 86% in Bahrain, 84% in Jordan, and 80% in Egypt."

Interesting.

Yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with the Director of Community Clubs and Organizations at the Ministry. I was once again clarifying my reason for carrying out this project, and explaining in essence the Fulbright mission of cross-cultural communication. I remembered listening to my first lecture on the status and being amazed at all the rights and empowerment that they enjoy, under the encouragement of His Majesty, and thought that Oman serves as quite a nice example of battling stereotypes that many may have of "oppression" of the Arab woman. She was telling me about a past trip to New York, and how she observed the gender gap in the workforce there and how, no matter how much women are rising up the workforce ladder, there is still a glass ceiling that needs to be broken and that need was very much visible to her. She then explained that the reason why there are no such "women's movements" here in Oman is because "everything is given to us." There are laws that state the equality of men and women in the workplace, the specifics are there, everything is there. Why should the women fight for it when they know that it's already been given to them? The fact of the matter is, some women don't know, so it falls upon the government and other civic organizations, like the Oman Women's Association, to inform the women - usually in rural areas - that they have legal rights and responsibilities.

She also addressed the subject of choices, with the example of the majority of Omani working women as teachers. For some, it may look like that the teaching profession, along with the health professions are the only few areas in which Omani women are welcome in the work force. The opposite is true. In essence, in paper, and in theory, women are allowed to work anywhere here; Oman was the first country in the Gulf to have women police officers and women serve in high ministerial positions. Oman is the first Arab country to have a woman ambassador to the US. Still many women *choose* to work in the teaching profession because they want to. They know that they can choose to do otherwise, but the director said that if you talk to them, they know they are other choices, but they are most content in this position.

Laws and hearsay and reports can only say so much. More comments on such matters will probably be addressed later on in the year ...