Gender And Politics In Kuwait

The enfranchisement of women presents a significant challenge to Kuwait's traditional system of politics and tribe. This step in the democratization process is, however, more likely to strengthen, rather than weaken, state control over domestic politics. Based on first-hand research and an extensive analysis spanning three decades, this book demonstrates how the relationship between women and the state has come to shape Kuwaiti society and national politics.

The role of women in politics in the Gulf is a much-debated and often little-understood subject in the West. In Gender and Politics in Kuwait the author sheds new light on the struggle of Kuwaiti women for political participation, examining both the positions women hold in society and politics, and the discourses surrounding feminism and civil rights. He charts the history of women and their contribution to the Kuwaiti state, from independence and the writing of the constitution in the 1960s, through the Iraqi occupation in 1990, to the struggle for the right to vote and stand for election in the twenty-first century. Drawing on the experiences of women in a range of roles in Kuwaiti society, including government, education, employment, civil society and the media, this is a comprehensive examination of gender politics and its impact in the Middle East.

The advances made in women’s issues in the Gulf State of Kuwait during the last sixty years have been widely commented upon, but limited academic research has been published on their material effects. In 2005, Kuwaiti women received the right to both vote and to run in elections to Parliament—the first women in the conservative Arab Gulf bloc to do so. This book presents five remarkable women leaders in Kuwait, including one of the first elected Kuwaiti female Members of Parliament, an art advocate and museum founder, a national hero and oil industry leader, a university founder, and a current, controversial MP. In intimate conversations with the author, they share their thoughts on topics such as gender relations and equality, the current women’s rights movement, the role of religion in politics and education, and female leaders’ visibility and impact. Their different backgrounds, interpretations of Islam, and outlooks on the future of their country combine to embody the changes involving women’s issues in Kuwait that have occurred since the mid-twentieth century. Even as Muslim feminists’ critique creates new arenas in Islamic theology and stridently conservative forms of Islamism become increasingly visible in the public space, the material effects of the advances in women’s issues in Kuwait have received little academic attention until now. A book that both complicates and contributes to understandings of women, Islam, and social change, this important work will be of great interest to scholars in religious studies, women’s and gender studies, and Middle Eastern studies, as well as reformers throughout the region who continue to find inspiration in Kuwait’s “Blue Revolution.”

Drawing on interviews and fieldwork in Kuwait and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, this book explores what cultural elites in the Arab Gulf region have to say about women's political and cultural rights and how their faith is or is not related to their politics.

This book examines the relationship between religion, democracy, and women's organizations in Kuwait. More specifically, it looks at whether these organizations are working toward achieving formal political rights for women. Helen Rizzo examines how interpretations of religion affected the goals and activities of the organizations in terms of women's empowerment and if the organizations were pushing the democratization process. Much of the recent literature on the relationship between Islam, democracy, and women's rights has been negative and pessimistic. Instead, this book examines the complicated relationship between these three things, arguing that some women in Kuwait are using Islam in their discourse to justify women's right to equality and public participation, thus countering the arguments that see Islam, democracy, and women's rights as inherently and culturally incompatible.

Drawing on interviews and fieldwork in Kuwait and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, this book explores what cultural elites in the Arab Gulf region have to say about women's political and cultural rights and how their faith is or is not related to their politics.

This book examines the relationship between religion, democracy, and women's organizations in Kuwait. More specifically, it looks at whether these organizations are working toward achieving formal political rights for women. Helen Rizzo examines how interpretations of religion affected the goals and activities of the organizations in terms of women's empowerment and if the organizations were pushing the democratization process. Much of the recent literature on the relationship between Islam, democracy, and women's rights has been negative and pessimistic. Instead, this book examines the complicated relationship between these three things, arguing that some women in Kuwait are using Islam in their discourse to justify women's right to equality and public participation, thus countering the arguments that see Islam, democracy, and women's rights as inherently and culturally incompatible.

The seventeen essays in Women and Power in the Middle East analyze the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape gender systems in the Middle East and North Africa. Published at different times in Middle East Report, the journal of the Middle East Research and Information Project, the essays document empirically the similarities and differences in the gendering of relations of power in twelve countries—Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. Together they seek to build a framework for understanding broad patterns of gender in the Arab-Islamic world. Challenging questions are addressed throughout. What roles have women played in politics in this region? When and why are women politically mobilized, and which women? Does the nature and impact of their mobilization differ if it is initiated by the state, nationalist movements, revolutionary parties, or spontaneous revolt? And what happens to women when those agents of mobilization win or lose? In investigating these and other issues, the essays take a look at the impact of rapid social change in the Arab-Islamic world. They also analyze Arab disillusionment with the radical nationalisms of the 1950s and 1960s and with leftist ideologies, as well as the rise of political Islamist movements. Indeed the essays present rich new approaches to assessing what political participation has meant for women in this region and how emerging national states there have dealt with organized efforts by women to influence the institutions that govern their lives. Designed for courses in Middle East, women's, and cultural studies, Women and Power in the Middle East offers to both students and scholars an excellent introduction to the study of gender in the Arab-Islamic world.