THE increase in the numbers of women joining Myanmar’s workforce in recent years is a good sign that the country is becoming more developed, said Prof Daw Yi Yi Myint, the founder of the Myanmar Women Entrepreneurs Association (MWEA).

“You can guess the development level of any country by looking at the status of women there,” she said. “Just like as a family has more money if the husband and wife work, so also country is financially stronger if both men and women earn money.”

She said that in the past decade the role of women in Myanmar has started to change from bearing and raising children to working as the cosponsor of a family

“This is a good sign because the more working women a country has, the more developed the country becomes,” she said.

An editor at a media company in Yangon said women are becoming involved in more sectors of the workforce and are being promoted to higher positions than ever before.

“The media sector is a good example – 10 years ago it was dominated by men but now there are many women in the industry,” she said.

She said the opening up of more jobs to women has given them more opportunities to prove their abilities.

“When I started working as a reporter six years ago my main challenges were facing disappointment when people wouldn’t agree to an interview.

“When I became an editor I had even bigger challenges. As a reporter I was only responsible for complaints about my own work but as an editor I have to deal with complaints about the mistakes of others,” she said.

She said her experience has taught her to deal with the hordes of critics who threaten lawsuits against her whenever they disagree with how they are portrayed in newspaper articles.

“When I started as a reporter I was afraid of people who threatened to sue and I responded by giving in and apologising even when they were wrong. But now I’m not afraid to deal with threats. The higher my position is, the more patient I become,” she said.

Ma Tin Moe Lwin, the managing director of Talents and Models modelling agency, said she sees the challenges of working as an opportunity to test her abilities.

“When I introduced the female modelling industry to Myanmar, most people could not accept the way our women presented themselves to the public,” she said. “I overcame these difficulties with my ambition to be a woman entrepreneur and my belief that the modelling industry would boom in Myanmar."

“Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose but I have been successful by embracing the challenges,” Ma Tin Moe Lwin said.