Do not go to Dubai if you are a woman.
One thing is to boycott it in principle, which either a man or a woman might want to do, and another is to rule it out as an alternative to Syria.
The amount of respect and importance women get in Dubai is incomparable to any other country.
for someone who lived in Dubai for 5+ years, I find those stories really strange. the city is really different than what you get from Media.
the government give a lot of privileges to western residents that's why the local population is nearly 18% of the total population.
Dubai has a lot of problems with its social system, but these sex/rape stories are definitely not the major ones, and its totally uncommon to read such stories.
How? As I understand it the actual UAE citizens are getting 'fat' off of the oil money, so all of the menial labour work goes to poor foreigners that are bussed in from SE Asia. It's going to be difficult to change a culture of people that are used to poor Asians doing all of the 'crap jobs' for them while they just bask in money (so to speak).
Especially the mainstream media (MSM)...
if you find a good job in Dubai you might give up the whole idea of moving to Europe as the standard of living is really high and the country is tax-free and amazing. but still you should be able to get a Schengen visit visa easily (especially if you work for a good company).