“Muslim women and their money are protected by the dogmas of Islam, wherein they have the right to spend their finances in whatever way they wanted to.”Recent studies and work by scholars has uncovered surprising similarities between American women and Arabia women when one looks at their influence over household spending and consumption,"shopping"
“Contrary to stereotyped beliefs, Arabia women have control of their own money,” opens the article by two professors from Zayed University in Abu Dhabi titled “Financial empowerment of Women in the United Arab Emirates,” published in 2008 in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.
The article continues: “[Women] have the right to spend their money in any way they see fit, even to contribute to the running of the household if they desire to do so. They may own property in their own name and invest or spend their own money as they choose.”
The article also summarizes the results of a series of focus groups with women in the UAE, a study that showed 79% of women managed their own money. The study also showed that 95%agree that religion influences how they spend their money, 66 percent think money brings them happiness and just over half, 53%, believe husbands and wives should share their money.
Additionally, it notes that men are the ones who pay household bills, but that they do not have control over what’s considered “conjugal” money.
It’s easy to see how not understanding this reality could lead many brands astray in messaging. Consider a hypothetical: A campaign aimed directly at men that subtly implies a woman must get permission from her husband to buy product X or Y? Disastrous. This is the one indisputable area of autonomy for many Middle Eastern women. A brand that fails to talk directly to women would not win any points or make any gains in building brand equity for failing to recognize and affirm this authoring.
Granted, this autonomy as consumers still doesn’t equate to parity with Western women in other economic endeavors. For instance, according to a recent study by the Arab Council of Businesswomen, a gender gap in business ownership persists in the region, with only 14 percent of business establishments in the region owned by women, compared to the US and Europe, where women own 30 percent of businesses.
Even so, Middle Eastern women wield enormous influence over spending, and marketers who don’t recognize this and integrate that truth into messaging, branding initiatives and campaigns do so at their own peril.
Female consumers in the region can also play powerful roles in boycotts of Western brands, according to Aseel Sawalha, a professor of anthropology at Pace University and an expert on the Middle East.
Sawalha shared her observation of street protests and women’s groups that organized boycotts against Danish products and brands in Jordan after the 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper of images of the Prophet Muhammad.
“It’s the women who were organizing, the women who were protesting against Danish products,” she recalled.
She noticed that in many retail stores, proprietors took great pains to make sure to address women shoppers, noting they were meeting consumer demands for the boycott. “Signs would say, lady, or madam, we boycott the Danish,” she said. “It was pretty clear women were in charge from a consumption standpoint.”
So what does that mean for Western brands eager to tap into this market?
“It’s the women who make the decisions about how to spend household money,” she said. “It’s the woman who decides what they are going to cook tomorrow. Even if they are not working, they are the ones who make the shopping lists and do the shopping.”
For marketers, it naturally follows that all brand communications must recognize this power.
After all, considering women in the region lack empowerment in other economic endeavors, undermining women’s power as consumers is misguided, to say the least.
Granted, women in the Middle East are far from monolithic. Data from the World Economic Forum on the global gender gap puts Egypt at the bottom of the list among Middle Eastern countries. Even so, women in the Middle East are making gains, albeit incremental ones, and many economic development studies have cited the continued suppression of women in the workforce and education as a deterrent to economic growth for the entire region.
In a different world, women in the region would already enjoy parity with their male counterparts in employment, education, pay and social freedoms. And empowering women as consumers surely isn’t the path to full-fledged independence. But failing to recognize and affirm this power is a surefire recipe for backlash. This is a consumer demographic that demands respect and the recognition of its autonomy and power.
Granted, this autonomy as consumers still doesn’t equate to parity with Western women in other economic endeavors. For instance, according to a recent study by the Arab Council of Businesswomen, a gender gap in business ownership persists in the region, with only 14 percent of business establishments in the region owned by women, compared to the US and Europe, where women own 30 percent of businesses.
Even so, Middle Eastern women wield enormous influence over spending, and marketers who don’t recognize this and integrate that truth into messaging, branding initiatives and campaigns do so at their own peril.
Female consumers in the region can also play powerful roles in boycotts of Western brands, according to Aseel Sawalha, a professor of anthropology at Pace University and an expert on the Middle East.
Sawalha shared her observation of street protests and women’s groups that organized boycotts against Danish products and brands in Jordan after the 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper of images of the Prophet Muhammad.
“It’s the women who were organizing, the women who were protesting against Danish products,” she recalled.
She noticed that in many retail stores, proprietors took great pains to make sure to address women shoppers, noting they were meeting consumer demands for the boycott. “Signs would say, lady, or madam, we boycott the Danish,” she said. “It was pretty clear women were in charge from a consumption standpoint.”
So what does that mean for Western brands eager to tap into this market?
“It’s the women who make the decisions about how to spend household money,” she said. “It’s the woman who decides what they are going to cook tomorrow. Even if they are not working, they are the ones who make the shopping lists and do the shopping.”
For marketers, it naturally follows that all brand communications must recognize this power.
After all, considering women in the region lack empowerment in other economic endeavors, undermining women’s power as consumers is misguided, to say the least.
Granted, women in the Middle East are far from monolithic. Data from the World Economic Forum on the global gender gap puts Egypt at the bottom of the list among Middle Eastern countries. Even so, women in the Middle East are making gains, albeit incremental ones, and many economic development studies have cited the continued suppression of women in the workforce and education as a deterrent to economic growth for the entire region.
In a different world, women in the region would already enjoy parity with their male counterparts in employment, education, pay and social freedoms. And empowering women as consumers surely isn’t the path to full-fledged independence. But failing to recognize and affirm this power is a surefire recipe for backlash. This is a consumer demographic that demands respect and the recognition of its autonomy and power.
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