Feature: Females active in male-dominant career in Egypt

Dressed in red buttonless shirt and black pants uniform, 24-year-old veiled Hadeer Ashraf looked confident and swift while holding the fuel pump nozzle gun to serve the vehicles lined up at Total gas station near the Nile Corniche Street in Maadi district southwestern the Egyptian capital city of Cairo.

Like many of her fellow gas station girls, Ashraf is highly educated and graduated from the college of engineering, yet she preferred to take the challenge and compete in a tough profession as a new trend in modern Egypt in defiance of conservative traditions.

"I like the idea as it is new in Egypt. I only heard about it abroad. My family and friends encouraged me to go on regardless of my high education," Ashraf told Xinhua after fueling a vehicle, noting she received a 10-day training before she was hired.

"As long as she is self-confident, a female can work anywhere and do everything. People saw it strange in the beginning but in time they see no difference between a male and female gas station worker," the young woman said proudly.

In recent years, the most populous Arab state has been facing economic recession over the past few years of political turmoil, leading to unemployment rate that hit 12.5 percent according to official reports.

At the same time, the society is also under slow progress toward gender equality. Except for the most underdeveloped and conservative part, most people have started to accept the idea that females should be provided equal opportunities in the society, especially the highly-educated ones.

Abdel-Qawi Ahmed, a man in his 50s who has just got his car fueled by the young woman, welcomed the idea of female gas station attendants, saying that it helps reduce unemployment rate among young people and encourage gender equality.

"It's a good idea economically and socially as it encourages the youth for earnest work. In fact, the quality of service provided by the girls is no less than that of boys," the man told Xinhua before driving out of the gas station, noting he has seen female taxi and school minibus drivers and he always respects them.

For Alaa Mahmoud, 21, her background of Helwan University diploma does not prevent her from working at the gas station and being awarded the "best worker of the month," although she has been working for the place only for five months.

"If we can do it in one male-dominant field, we can do it in all other fields. There are female mechanics in Europe. If we just encourage the idea and develop it, females can be engaged in all careers in Egypt," the enthusiastic young woman told Xinhua.

Despite the fact that sexual harassment rate is high in Egypt, Mahmoud said that she did not face harassment or embarrassing situations during work, noting that some customers say nice words of encouragement to her and even some of her friends take pictures with her at the gas station.

The young women work in the gas station from the morning until the afternoon, a shift during which most of the workers are females, except for some supervisors and the station site manager.

"When I saw the girls in the gas station for the first time, I felt very happy and saw that it's really an ordinary job that anyone can do regardless of their gender," Sherry, a 20-year-old medicine student in Cairo University, told Xinhua inside her fancy car in the gas station.

"This kind of work is normal outside Egypt and a person does not necessarily have to work in the field of their study," Sherry continued, urging the girls not to listen to criticism as long as they are self-confident and they like their work.

The Egypt branch of French Total energy producer and provider was the first to initiate the idea in Egypt in April 2015, which started by a gas station in Maadi, continued to include another gas station in Cairo-Alexandria desert highway and is expected to be applied in several other gas stations in the near future.

"Among the challenges we faced is that we're in a society that might reject the idea of female work in a gas station, but the regulations we set and the work environment we provided eventually overcome all obstacles," Mohamed Ashraf, retail-operated manager in Total Egypt, told Xinhua.

"Females workers are systematic and diligent and their presence created a kind of competition with male workers who eventually started to work harder," the manager pointed out.

"Also, the gas station worker is just the first step for those girls, Total company will also provide more space for them in higher careers, based on their education and ability," he added with a smile. Endit