Breaking Through - Belgium’s GLASS CEILING

October 17, 2024 by
Jane Davis

The gender pay gap in Belgium has fallen to 4.5%1 , but discrimination based on gender and race2 is still very real. And the glass ceiling still prevents many people from achieving their potential. It’s even more difficult to break through for women of colour such as Ihsane Haouach.

Starting out

As a little girl, Ihsane didn’t consider herself different. “I thought ‘You’re Moroccan, but you’re also Belgian’. That was always clear to me. But I quickly realised it wasn’t clear to other people.”

Immigrants are often seen as poorly educated people who come to Belgium to take up low-paid, unskilled jobs. But Ihsane’s father was a Moroccan diplomat, and her mother had insisted on continuing her own education. “I felt that gender equality had already been achieved. For me, it’s normal as a woman to have a will of my own and not allow myself to be pushed around”.

Ihsane always planned to go to university, but her broad interests made it difficult to choose a path.

“Am I going to do law, or journalism? By the last day of registration I still had no idea what to pick! I made the pragmatic choice and went for a business school, for management.”

Building a career 

Her choice to wear a hijab caused a furore at university, and although Ihsane gracefully omits details of the racism she suffered, it’s clear it had an effect. “I think that was the first major impact in my life, because at school you have your classmates, you’re protected. But I said, ‘OK, I’ll just have to do well in my degree’, and I ended up with a High Distinction. That was a big surprise.”

After university, she joined a large energy company, where she stayed for ten years. “I began with finance, because it’s fundamental. For every new project, you have to know the costs, the funding”. From there, she moved into change management, which gave her more visibility in the company, and included meetings in Paris – where she was once again a target, with security guards repeatedly checking her ID and questioning her presence.

Beyond work

Not content with career success, Ihsane also got involved in social initiatives, discovering theatre as a means of communication. “A four-minute scene can convey a message about discrimination better than hours of discussion.” She also co-created an association to promote youth education, and was a founder of L’Epicerie, an educational, cultural and civic centre.

Ihsane was delighted to be invited to join the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men – an important role, though intended to occupy just a few hours a month. Once again, Ihsane’s choice to wear the hijab led to a dispute, this time in the public eye. What had been planned as a contribution to diversity in Belgium quickly became a huge burden, and Ihsane chose to resign rather than fight an impossible battle.

Fatigued from weeks of political polemic, eight years of supporting the cultural centre and two bouts of COVID, Ihsane decided to take time off and write. “I wasn’t interested in writing about the past. So I wrote about a woman navigating a merger between two companies3 . Company culture can be stronger than national culture. It’s a microcosm of society. For me, the novel is an allegory for what goes on in society as a whole.”

Embracing diversity

With the novel complete, Ihsane sought a new role. But everyone wanted her to work with diversity. “I’d say ‘I’m not an expert in diversity. You must go beyond appearance and look at profiles. If I’m invited to a meeting, my position is often that of a 50-year-old manager. I’ve never been poor. Someone with foreign origins isn’t necessarily in a situation of precarity’. And they’d say ‘That’s really interesting, can you come and talk to us about that?’”

Accepting the inevitable, Ihsane devised the O.P.E.N. model for working with diversity, and wrote another book4 , incorporating interviews with other leaders. Meanwhile, she was trying to get her novel published. Publishers’ reactions were positive, but there was a problem. “They said ‘We’d love to publish it, but we don’t know what category to put it in’. That’s the story of my life! I’ve always wanted to bring what I’ve wanted to bring, regardless of the box it fitted into.” Finally published, the novel received critical acclaim “including for the writing, which pleases me as I’m a perfectionist”.

Into the future

Ihsane is now planning a third book. “This one’s about energy. I realised that due to fighting the battles imposed upon me, I risked losing myself, my first vocation, to work for social inclusion and the energy transition.

Now her time is largely spent giving workshops and keynotes, but she is also on the board of the energy regulator. “This gives me balance. I might have a day in a corporate context, speaking at board level, and then I’ll be working with an association, talking to women with very little French, and then involved in energy tariff negotiations. And I love it, because they’re such different worlds, people who never meet, and I’m the bridge. When I talk about energy, I think about the impact on the poorest families. And in a social project, I apply corporate management tools and always ask about the climate footprint. I’d love to combine all of these aspects in one job, but it doesn’t seem possible just now. But I also love my freedom.”

Two final questions

Best career advice for a young girl? “Know yourself. Choose a path based on who you are. Do you like knowing one thing thoroughly? Do you like doing many different things? And make sure you’re paid fairly – don’t say ‘the money doesn’t matter’, because it does.”

Is Belgium a good country to live in? “Yes. Sexism and racism still exist, but it’s a country where you can work on something you love. Where work is a joy, not a burden. Belgium’s problem is that it looks up to France when it should celebrate its own identity, because – despite the terrible weather! – it’s a great place to live.”

Jane Davis October 17, 2024
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