You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Daily.

This talk features women's advocate Leila Hoteet, recorded live at TED at BCG 2016.

Mom, who are these people?

It was an innocent question from my young daughter Alia around the time when she was three.

We were walking along with my husband in one of Abu Dhabi's big fancy malls.

Anya was appearing at a huge poster standing tall in the middle of the mall.

It featured the three rulers of the United Arab Emirates.

As she tucked in my side, I bent down and explained that these were

the rulers of the UAE, who had worked hard to develop their nation and preserve its unity. She

asked, Mom, why is it that here where we live, and back in Lebanon, where grandma and grandpa

live, we never see the pictures of powerful women on the walls.

Is it because women are not important?

This is probably the hardest question I've had to answer in my years as a parent, and in my 16 plus years of professional life for that matter.

I had grown up in my hometown of Lebanon, the younger of two daughters, to a very hard-working pilot and director of operations for the Lebanese airlines,

and a super supportive stay-at-home mom and grandma.

My father had encouraged my sister and I to pursue our education,

even though our culture emphasized at the time that it was sons and not daughters

who should be professionally motivated.

I was one of very few girls of my generation

who left home at 18 to study abroad.

My father didn't have a son,

and so I, in a sense, became his.

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