Progress Amid Resistance

LIBYA 299Article 95 of the Labor Law (No. 58 of 1970) stipulates that womenmay not be employed in difficult or dangerous jobs. Under Article 96,Libyan women may not work more than 48 hours a week including overtime,nor can they work between 8 p.m. and 7 a.m. unless authorizedby order of the Workforce, Training, and Employment Secretariat in theGeneral People’s Committee. As a result, some hospitals and clinics employforeign women, to whom these provisions are not applicable.According to the International Labour Organization, the female laborforce participation rate was 27.3 percent in 2007, up from 25.6 percent in2004 and 23.9 percent in 2000. 50 Despite the government’s official stanceon women’s employment, which welcomes diversity in their choice of profession,women continue to work predominantly in fields that are traditionallyassociated with females, such as education, health services, andsecretarial or cleaning work. Furthermore, Libyan men of ten prefer thattheir female family members work in jobs that do not en tail mixing withthe opposite sex. 51 They also prefer that women not work too far from thehome, further limiting the options available to female professionals.Under Section 31 of the Labor Law, men and women should receiveequal pay if the nature and conditions of their work are the same. 52 However,in reality women are often paid less than men for doing the samejob. It is still difficult for women to attain high-ranking positions in theirprofessional life, and both men and women often exhibit resistance tothe idea of women holding positions of authority over men. Even withinfields that are traditionally associated with women, senior jobs tend to beawarded to men. In spite of the large numbers of women who work in thehigher education sector, only a few attain the level of professor or lecturer.During the 2007–08 academic year at Sebha University, for example, therewere 51 male and no female Libyan professors or associate professors, and92 male but only 11 female lecturers. 53Professional women face many challenges both in the public and privatesectors. As one female employee in a government investment companytold the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), “Our society is veryconservative and patriarchal. . . . It is unusual for a woman to live on herown and work in the public sector. I struggle all the time to overturn thestereotype of women working only as secretaries. . . . As a result my abilityto do my job is often hindered and made difficult. I deal with bureaucraticand chauvinistic obstacles every day.” 54 Within the private sector, which