Israel’s tech industry holds the nation’s best hope for women to achieve economic parity, the Israeli commissioner for equal employment opportunities told a group of professional women at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto, but much work remains before that goal is attained.
Mariam Kabaha, who works within Israel’s ministry of the economy and is the highest-ranking Israeli Arab woman in the Israeli civil service, led a discussion about gender equality in Israel with the gathering of businesswomen and tech professionals on Nov. 15 as part of a West Coast tour coordinated by the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco.
In 2014, the average monthly income for women in Israel’s core high-tech industries was 50 percent less than that of men.
Promoting educational opportunities for women in science and technology is the key to achieving gender equality, Kabaha said, adding that Israeli women still overwhelmingly choose educational degrees in fields such as nursing, social work and teaching, rather than technology or science.
While 26 percent of Israeli employees in the core high-tech industries are women, a gender pay gap remains in part because of the lower-level functions those female employees perform within the industry, she said.
“Our mission at the EEOC is to promote the benefits of diversity in the workplace. It’s not only ethical, it’s a national issue and is needed in order to have a flourishing economy,” Kabaha said.
The Palo Alto meeting, hosted by the Israel Collaboration Network, included U.S., European and Israeli women working in Silicon Valley who shared their experiences and offered mutual support. Kabaha also was a featured speaker at the Women in the Workplace summit in San Francisco the following day.
Kabaha holds a law degree from Haifa University and is currently a Maoz Fellow, a program designed to develop Israeli public leaders. She is responsible for promoting equality and eliminating discrimination in the workplace on 16 grounds that include gender, age, nationality and sexual orientation. Her goal, she said, is to have both the civil and private sectors in Israel reflect the population’s true diversity.
Much of her department’s work, she said, has to do with raising public awareness about what equality means, in addition to handling complaints, providing legal guidance and litigating discrimination suits against employers.
“It’s not easy to make change; extensive training for employers is needed,” she said.
Kabaha shared data showing that 43 percent of all women’s employment discrimination appeals relate to workplace issues around pregnancy. It is by far the largest single category of appeals, despite Israel’s reputation as a family-centered society.
“We are trying in the civil service to develop ways to measure worker productivity by the quality of their work, not just the hours on site, so that women don’t suffer when trying to balance the demands of life and of their job,” she said.
Israeli Deputy Consul General Ravit Baer described Kabaha as “a proud Arab Israeli and a true fighter for nondiscrimination.”
“Mariam Kabaha’s visit is part of our effort to broaden the conversation around Israel and to expose different aspects of our country that are not known in this region,” Baer said. “Israel has amazing achievements in many fields such as public health, fighting the trafficking of human beings, LGBTQ rights and its extensive social security system. We want to create a dialogue around these issues with local counterparts.”