It’s perfectly reasonable for the photos of the UAE’s gender balance awards to be ridiculed. They are patently, laughably outrageous, and it’s possible – if unlikely – that a bit of global mockery will encourage those organising next year’s ceremony to think a little more carefully about their nominees.

But it’s also important to remember that the UAE – and Middle Eastern countries more generally – are not the only places where such embarrassingly tone-deaf events occur. In 2016, PayPal organised a male-only panel to discuss gender equality at its California headquarters, while the British organisation Women in Defence was criticised in December 2018 for hosting a discussion about gender equality in the military that consisted solely of men (although there were two female co-chairs).

Go ahead and mock the UAE’s all-male gender equality awards – but don’t forget the West’s track record