Any tips for female western engineer in Egypt?

Be your self and act seriously, talk about your profession not your social life .

Mention your husband, even if you don't have one!

as long as you know about  the dress code in egypt No short dress or tight dress  
then come the important point ( that many western women complain here on this site ) .... Never to think abut orfi marriage ....... and if any one propose this to you , then take much care of him ..... he is mostly playing .

another point , dont allow men to touch you , even if it they look naive ...... some may abuse that you are western .........  here in middle east , there is no hugs or kisses or touching between men and women .......... it is different than europe , so some men may abuse you .

i am sorry if my words are harsh ........ but , i see many women complain on this site about men who abused them , and do fake orfi marriage ..

another warning ;  take care of guys who work in tourism field   most of troubles come from them .

Did people act towards you that you're not a professionist? Or is it just your feeling?
Notice that anyone in any place have a certain look to people who look different.
For example if you look as a white western
Also if you're dark black
But did anyone treat you with less respect?

Hi PollyZ

You have picked yourself a difficult task ... as if you did not know this already   

I am Raymond from Ireland and married to an wonderful Egyptian Asmaa ...

I have visited Egypt on more than 37 occasions since 2012 and cumulatively spent about 1 year and 3 months there

You are going up against some really difficult cultural issues. But recognising them is the first step in counteracting them.

Women in Egypt .. in general .. are 2nd class no matter how they dress it up ... they are responsible to their father or elder family male until they are married and then to their husband....  This translates in doing what you are told, when you are told and is usually dressed up as .. for their own good ... men know best ... and they twist religion to enforce their point.
Now I could go on at length on how much hassle I get and laugh at for giving my wife to much freedom and letting her do what she likes when she like ... as her father, brother, uncles and extended male family .. from letting travel alone when she wishes, to having control of her own money, to wearing the clothes she likes... because it irks the men and insights the women to complain ...

Now western women in general are viewed as easy to get, low morals, and targets to marry to get out of Egypt.
   
Some tips ....
Do not be alone in public areas if at all possible .... Sexual harassment and sexual assault is rife (just google is or look at any of the Embassy website warning) ... manage your security ... stay in the best hotel possible ... tell people where you are going and when you will be back ... always be picked up at the airport and know who is picking you up and where you are going and have a constant contact number.
Wear sunglasses as much as possible even in hotels, airport, public places, taxis, ... it avoids eye contact and stops a lot of unwanted engagement before it starts ..
Power dress ...Dress up ... Business like ... act like the boss and you are in charge ... even if you are wearing safety kit make sure it fits and it is first class ... If you appear rich, powerful and connected you will get less hassle ..
Don't smile ... appear aloof .... practice a look of disdain ...
Don't engage in chit-chat ... don't be friendly ... don,t shake hands ... particularly with hotel staff, waiters, drivers, any low level staff ... just don't answer ... make a phone call ... talk to yourself on the phone if no one can take your call or you don't have a signal... be preoccupied checking your phone ... 
Get a wedding ring, if you don't have one, if will fend off unwanted invitations ...
Don't respond at all, whatever, to unknown unwanted verbal "hello beautiful woman"  etc if it is from staff, respond " "what is your name, get me your manager" and follow through on the report
Don't be over friendly with colleagues or clients ... be business like, polite and professional ... unless you really have to attend business engagement, dinners etc make reasonable excuses .. I am very tired .. I have work to catch up on ... and never attend on your own to someone alone .. and if you get conned pretend to be ill and make your polite excuses and leave.
Don't if at all possible get into a car or taxi alone ... if you have to .. get in the back behind the driver and wear sunglasses... be on the phone and a minimum of conversation with the driver to get you where you are going. Let someone know you are going, who the driver is and what time you are arriving.
If you have to get into a car with colleagues who are in the back then get in the front.
Never let anyone have or retain you passport ... carry photocopies and give these to hotel, showing they are a copy.
Try and avoid giving your mobile number to anyone except those who absolutely need it ... use a message minder and don't answer unknown numbers after hours.

The very best of luck ..

Ray

To Mr Raymond

  I don't know sir with all due respect you made me feel that Miss/Mrs Polly is going to a war zone or as if she's wanted dead or alive. In my opinion thats too much; as if she's a thief that has to hide to prevent getting caught.

  If I were her and never been to Egypt before and believe what you're saying I would never come to Egypt and would prefer to resign or leave my job or business rather than take all the precautions you said. I mean you made me feel scared; she's not going to wild forrest

I have talked to young girls that live or lived in Egypt. I don't deny that there were some annoyment and even some harrassments sometimes and one of them; a canadian; complained about the marriage offerings in an attempt for the Egyptian guy to be Canadian. By the way; many pretty Egyptian girls either in Cairo or Alexandria or any city; experience occasional harrassments through the years. I also think if they were in any place in Europe or North America or Australia; you may get a harrassment from a drunk guy in the streets. If I was a western girl and read what you wrote I would never ever think or allow myself to go to Egypt for my safety and security.

Last; I think Miss/Mrs Polly according to your thread that you've been to Alexandria or Egypt before. I think you're capable to judge Mr Raymonds precautions and tips whether they are necessary and important or not. And whether its that hard and you have to be behind your sunglasses may be at the night time or not. Finally; I'm an Egyptian guy; and not a western girl; so I've never experienced any of your complains. I wish a young western girl that lived in Cairo or Alexandria would give you the right advice and right tips. They would had past personal experiences better than me and Mr Raymond.

Best wishes

     Mohamed

Linkdin is the best for your situation

stop acting defensive @Mohamed123456789 .
raymond is right  he defiantly talk about life experience . you will never know how some may feel unless u are being  her/him .  but i can assume  you are able to use your eyes/ears have a good sense about what going in your country ?

taking in considerations the amount  of frustrations   inside the country , economic status , is it better than 10 years ago ?

i think this happens depend how naive she is... where she go , time of work   . unless she is big mouse and total understand how to block all advances . she would not tell difference who is being friendly .

foreigners are the best to give advice in this matter because some/many have gone through this.

Hello gentleman
you are very much exaggerating .........  the lady ask for advice how to live for a temporary period for work ...... not to work for mafia , or to live in jungles.

simply she need to be cautious while she explore the life in the  new  city , till she become familiar and make her own knowledge ........ life is not as bad as you try to show her ..........

and , women are not a 2nd class as you claim here ........ women go to universities and work equal to men ......... if your egyptian wife gave you such information , maybe that was her case or experience , but that is not to be generalized .

regarding sexual harassments here , it happens as it happen in any other country in europe ..... i lived in europe and i know that harassments exist there as well .

despite i see the issue of sunglasses as an exaggeration , but you had given here some nice  tips that i agree with you about ; like

Don't smile randomly without need ...
Don't engage in chit-chat ... don't be over friendly ... don,t shake hands with men.

Don't respond at all, whatever, to unknown unwanted verbal talks

Don't get into a car or taxi alone whenever possible ... and to get in the back behind the driver ,with  minimum of conversation with the driver .

Not to give mobile number to many people , except those who absolutely need it , for example work colleuges , and hotel

concerning retaing her passport , as far as i know No one here in egypt retain passports of foreigners ...... maybe (if it happens ) this can be for few days if she needs to make a residence permit , and she will get her passport again..............   but in all cases i agree with you that she should have many copies of her passport with her ........ I do that myself whenever i go out of egypt .

at the end ; Life is not that dark , and we dont live in jungles here , and women are not a second class , as you try to show the lady here ............  simply she has to be cautious in the new city , exactly as cautious as visiting any new city in any other country ............ every country has good and bad people as well.

Mohamed 123456789

I think Rocket8881 is right on the money ... Defensive with a capital D ... and I think from your rebuttal so are my wife's suggestions ...

The suggestions are not mine but are on foot of discussions with and suggestions from my wonderful Egyptian wife Asmaa, her sister Esraa and several of my extended female Irish family who have all spent considerable time in Egypt. Includes ... Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, Sharm, Tor, Hurgharda, Alexandria, Suez, Dahab, to name a few places we have visited and lived for an extended time.

And these suggestions do dramatically reduce the unwanted hassle and harassment.

I love Egypt .... but there is a misogynistic, ugly and very disrespectful side to quite a large number of Egyptian men to both Egyptian women (particularly if they show some independence) and more so to western women ..  regardless if you care to acknowledge or admit it ...

When a European woman walks alone in public downtown in any of the above cites / towns it is hassle and crude remarks bordering on sexual harassment all the time. "Pretty Woman" "like to come with me" " what is your name" are a few of the more polite remarks ... even when I am in my wife's company there are remarks usually in Arabic (which they wrongly seem to think i don't understand) sometimes bordering on abuse as to what she is doing with a western man and implying she is a "shamota" and sometimes not implying but being more direct ...

Just as an example .... You are aware there are separate carriages on the metro in Cairo for men and women ... and this is hassle and harassment driven ... in Europe there is no need of such measures ...   

If they are alone in hotels they are constantly approached with unwanted offers and suggestions amounting to sexual harassment ... Egyptian men in the hotel don't see a business woman alone they see an available woman looking for sex ... after all, they would say, why else would she be alone in a hotel !!!

I offered some strategies suggested by my wife and other women to try and reduce the hassle and make it tolerable.

Now this is their factual experience ... when I told my wife about you views ... her response was to laugh and say "Another Egyptian man living in the river in Egypt "The Nile .. (Denial)"   

My wife has lived most of the last 4 years in Ireland and visited a fair number of European countries England, Scotland, Poland, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece;  both with me, alone on business and with friends. The single biggest difference from Egypt she says is that she has experienced zero misogynistic hassle, unwanted comments or harassment in Ireland or other parts of Europe either on the street, in hotels, in cafes or even in bars in the evening alone waiting for me or her friends ... it completely amazed her .. she was just left alone ... as it should be.

Anyway, I will not defend my wife's suggestions any longer to you ... they were for PollyZ and she can give some feedback as to their use or not if she gets the time...


Regards

Raymond and Asmaa ...

Hi Ahmed19766

See my reply to Mohamed123456789
These suggestion are from my wife Asmaa, her sister Esraa and the women in my extended Irish family ..
The sun glasses ... avoids eye contact and works excellently ... so they tell me.

My wife has a 4 year honours business degree in English from Ain Shams University in Cairo and an MBA from Trinity University in Dublin ... she speaks fluent Russian and French  ... She work full time in Ireland as a Director of an IT company and as a management consultant.
Her view ... and the view of most of her well educated Egyptian female friends and relatives are they are treated as second class ...
And I have seen it so many times ... you do see some working in Cairo, yes, but very few as a percentage of the population and even fewer as management and they will rarely be paid equally for the same work. In Europe the work force is relatively 50 / 50 and laws are enforced to ensure equal pay for equal work.

I even get hassle !!!!..... from her extended male family members all the time ..... for giving her too much freedom, allowing her to earn and keep her own money and invest it as she sees fit ... for allowing her to travel to and from Egypt alone ... for letting her socialise in restaurants and bars in Ireland with her friend without me ... allowing her to travel alone in Europe for business ... and I could not believe this .... her brother took me aside, the last time in Egypt and told me ... I am not controlling her and it is was just not good for her ... I could do nothing but laugh and he was puzzled .... he didn't really understand what I was laughing at ...  Her uncle nearly had a heart attack when she bought a flat in Rehab and found it was in her name only!!!!
So that's equality Egyptian style

I can give you lots of examples it is so blatant ... but if you can't see it ... well there is really no use arguing ... as my wife often quote " lots of men live in the river in Egypt (in "The Nile" / "Denial") ... but maybe you have no broad experience outside Egypt as to what equality for women really should be ..

Kindest regards

Raymond and Asmaa Lawlor

@ahmed197666  "regarding sexual harassments here , it happens as it happen in any other country in europe ..... i lived in europe and i know that harassments exist there as well ."

sexual harassment is very big trend in egypt , even rape is high  but remain unreported  , study  say every egyptian woman was sexually harassed -highest rate in the world  . not few times but hundreds of times . you know it.

any country in the world got it's own problems. and like other places its not
perfect but when strangers mix between the fact "that many egyptians seems friendly /socializing" and their real character they fall  in big trap , so there should be limits .

developing countries normally suffer from other issues than west(developed )   , for example  although from inside  egypt  family bond , reserved society play role to protect people ... law is  very poor and  rarely executed  specially for women advantage.

same like mohamed you say things like "it's not a jungle" because you care about TOURISM!!  $$ , egypt IMAGE ! but real problems that happens to foreigners   does not concern you since the average egyptians has a lot more issues . so you milk the goat that bring  cash to country.

white women are seen like reward ,egyptians men die 1000's for them . men driven by testosterones  may go to  jihad if they can acquire them [ let alone if they have body of russian women] . if many egyptians males cant stop this attitude with egyptians  women how could western women  supposed to end this ? when their appearance and language barrier  does not help egyptians fear them .

hello raymond and asmaa

your premise that working women are few in population is not right and not accurate ......... I have no idea about where asmaa were working in egypt before , but there are facts here that i assume she know well

1) work opportunities are not much here nowadays  .... so there are many men and women who search for jobs ........

2) If you work for the government , then your salary is related to the duration of your work within the organization .... and if you work extra time ............... It is not related at all to gender ........... so , if a man and a woman start work at the same day , then they will have the same salary .....

3) if you work for a private company , then your income will be based on the skills and certificates and experience .......... in many occasions you will find women who earn more than men ...........

4) because of lack of opportunities , and the abundance of people applying for the job , The private companies try to give lower salaries to the new employees (men or women) ........ and they know that applicant will accept because he need to get a job , to start making experience...

5) women are not allowed to be in managerial level ..... that is absolutely not true ............  i had a female manager few years ago ...... and there are women who became ministers and university presidents in egypt ...

6) women are not allowed to go abroad alone ....... not a rule ...... i have female friends in work who went alone abroad for work and for attending conferences ..... they are moslims and putting on hijab
, and went alone ......... one of my friends stayed in amsterdam alone for more than 2 years ..... moslima in hijab in amsterdam ..... she is just an example , because there are many like her ...

7) you have hassle from asmaa family about the freedom that you give her ..... ok .... i have nothing to say here cuz i have no idea what kind of freedom you give to asmaa that is something between both of you but i am sure that she is happy that you saved her from egyptian monsters ..... but as i can see through your words , you have a good relation with her family and they ask you to take more and more control over their daughter asmaa ........  i guess if they were close minded family , they weren't accept you to marry their daughter ........ or at least , they would have cut all bonds with her if she married you against their well .....

8)  congratulations for the new appartement for Asmaa in rehab city   and i hope that her uncle s in better health now ..... however i wonder ; why he got heart attack for buying a flat !!!!!!!  that is non of his business ...... and that is not something rare to buy an appartment ............................... anyway , my aunt bought a new appartement in her name only around 2 years ago in new cairo ........ and none of us got a heart attack , thank god 


9) concerning my experience of life abroad ; I lived 2 years in amsterdam ... beside i have been before to paris ,  rome , munich , toronto , vancoever , melbourne , vienna , bratislava , and many cities in USA......  I dont know how much experience is needed to know the quality of treatment needed for women  ..........  and by the way ,  women in my family are doctors and pharmacists , and few working as accountants

10 ) i am afraid that maybe asmaa had a bad luck in her previous work in egypt before she marry with you ...... but  , take it easy ..... life is hard sometimes .... not only for her , but for most of humans ........ it is " day up , day down" ........ so , dont be angry asmaa for what happened before enjoy the life now , and be sure that hard times before made you stronger to reach the position and life style that you have now .............  and if asmaa had bad luck before , this doesn't mean that this is the rule for every female ........... as i told you before , it vary based on the work style itself

at the end my best wishes to raymond and asmaa wishing you both a great day
sincerely
ahmed alone

i dont know where you get data about rape and harasment as a trend in egypt .........  mind your words ..
and i dont write here to bring tourists ..... that is not my job or concern .......... i wrote her to answer the post of the lady who asked for questions ......... tourism will not be affected neither by my post or even yours .

I will leave you to the Egypt you seem to live in .. the one in the river in Egypt ..
Some day it would be nice to visit it .. when it is real..
But for now  Ahmed i have learned not to argure with Egyptian Men who won't acknowledge  the inequality and harassment women suffer in Egypt and have to put up with and men don't want to do anything about it because it suits them
But every woman on here  agrees it exist .. but they don't count so it doesn't exist does it Ahmed 🤣

Hello everyone,

Please note that you are invited to share your personal experience on the forum and you are required to respect what members have shared. This is not a debate. So please, be  courteous and do not stray away from the initial question asked.

Thank you in advance,
Bhavna