Kuwait is one of the richest and most conservative Arab countries with regard to women

Source of the image
Getty Images

Kuwait is one of the richest countries in the world, but there seems to be a shift away from empowering women to participate in public life. Only half of Kuwaitis accept the idea of ​​a woman at the head of the government, one of the lowest in the Arab world. This is indicated by a new large-scale survey.

The survey, conducted by the Arab Barometer research network on BBC Arabic, surveyed more than 26,000 Arab citizens in 11 Arab countries as well as in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Although Kuwait is a richer and more developed country than its respondents, the results revealed that its attitude towards women was more conservative and more restrictive than any other Arab country.

When asked their opinion about the possibility that a woman holds one of the positions of head of state or prime minister, only half of Kuwaitis responded positively.

This figure is 10% lower than the average for Arab countries. Kuwait is at the bottom of the list, as is Sudan and a place higher than Algeria.

In comparison, more than two-thirds of respondents in Lebanon, Morocco, Iraq and Tunisia said that women should have this right.

A significant gender difference was noted in Kuwait, with only one-third of men saying that women could qualify as prime ministers, while two-thirds of women said so.

Kuwaitis did not have the right to vote until 2005. In 2009, four women were elected deputies for the first time in the country's history.

There remains only one deputy, Safa al-Hashem, pioneer in 2009. It is therefore certain that Kuwait, after the grand opening of this year, began to decline in terms of political empowerment of women.

Source of the image
Getty Images

Women and politics

One of the questions asked was whether they thought men were more apt to become political leaders than women. Three-quarters of respondents answered this question in the affirmative, an increase of 17% since 2014.

It was found that people with above-average income levels were more likely to think that men were better than women in politics.

The proportion of men favoring men as political leaders in 2014 was about 59%, and if the preference of men gradually decreases, the figure should now be 50:50. On the contrary, two-thirds of women believe that politicians are better than their female counterparts. Is there a negative reaction against the empowerment of women?

Sondos Hussein, a feminist activist who tries to balance her work as a computer consultant with her family responsibilities, was not surprised by the survey results.

"Society has taken a negative turn even when it has been given a chance to choose political women," she said. "We have not yet had the opportunity to see what women can do when they hold leadership positions."

She believed that the interviewees may have been influenced by Kuwait's constitution that the prime minister should be part of a man in the Al-Sabah family, the ruling family of Kuwait.

Source of the image
Google

But Sundus adds that there is progress in the non-political areas. "We have women in prestigious companies, we also have deans of universities," she says. "Many run private businesses and many work in state institutions".

She added that this progress could be faster if women were given more flexibility in working hours and part-time work, as women workers who currently have a family were in a difficult situation.

"Many men still believe that women should stay at home and take care of their families instead of going to work," she said.

Women interviewed expressed less neutral views on non-political issues.

While 43% of men supported the right to equal divorce, 87% supported it.

While 83% of men were in favor of the opinion that the last word of the family should be men, only 43% of women supported it.

University education

Education is one of the few areas where both sexes agree. The survey revealed that, in general, only 16% of Kuwaitis believe that university education is more important for men than for women and only 20% of men are of this opinion.

Women with university education are not a significant problem for Kuwaiti men. The problem seems to be that education can be turned into an independent authority or a decision-making capacity.

It is interesting to note that sexual harassment and domestic violence were one of the issues that the Kuwaiti government prevented from asking.

Sundus is one of the founders of the Abolish campaign 153 ) Or "repeal section 153".

Source of the image
Abolisharticle153

Article 153 of the Kuwaiti Penal Code 16 of 1960 authorizes a man to kill all the women in his family who are taken in a sexually explicit position without paying a small fine.

She says the Kuwaiti society accepts money laundering crimes, which are concentrated in areas with a high proportion of Bedouins.

"We do not seem to be making progress in Bedouin society." Until now, Bedouin deputies in the National Assembly have managed to influence their colleagues to prevent the repeal of Article 153.

It is clear that Kuwait has become a paradox in terms of women's political empowerment over the last decade.

Kuwait is a rich country, which has spent a lot of money on cultural projects. For example, he created the biggest opera house in the region.

But this material progress does not seem to contribute to the promotion of women's problems.

The gender gap

Although the World Economic Forum's 2018 report states that Kuwait has managed to reduce the gender gap in professional and technical work, political rights have not moved at the same pace. The Forum itself has concluded that Kuwait is one of the four worst countries in the world in terms of women's political empowerment.

In addition, Kuwait has gained a good reputation by raising a generation of women leaders such as economist Rola Dashti.

Rola Dashti co-organized the protests that ultimately allowed women to get the right to vote.

She was one of four women elected to the National Assembly in 2009 and was appointed Minister of Government, a position she held from 2012 to 2014. This year she was appointed director of United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.

"There is no doubt that Kuwait is better for women than Saudi Arabia," Sondos Hussein said, noting that some Saudi women who took part in protests against the right to drive are still in prison despite the law authorizing women to drive.

She says that women in Kuwait enjoy many more freedoms than other Gulf states to present themselves without the intervention of a man. But she adds that a look at the Arab region as a whole reveals that Kuwait is still lagging behind many other countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon in this regard.

One of the most revealing questions from the survey was whether women could travel alone outside Kuwait. Although 59% of women participated, only a quarter of men signed up.

"As a mother, I do not have the right to have a passport for my daughter or my children," says Sondos Hussein. These laws. "

The Kuwaiti government has refused to investigate a number of issues, including sexual harassment, religion, political change, mental health and violence.