Kuwaiti women between constitutional rights and patriarchal society

Eleven years since the passage of a law allowing Kuwaiti women to participate in the country’s political life does not seem to affect this deeply rooted patriarchal society where women are absent from the parliament, municipal council, and the government except for a sole minister.

A professor of political science at Kuwait University, Masouma Mubarak, 69 who was the first female Kuwaiti minister and parliamentarian said she was very proud to have represented her country’s women, saying the day she entered the country’s Parliament to take the oath was historic.

“Several lawmakers opposed my presence. To them, that was the first time a woman enters the Parliament. Many others simply opposed granting women any rights” she said.

Mubarak recalls with pride when she and her three female colleagues, MPs Salwa Al-Jassar, Rola Dashti and Aseel Al-Awadi were able in 2009 to pass three significant laws for women.

Mubarak says women were able to obtain many rights over the past eleven years, but unfortunately in practice the Kuwaiti society still does not accept women participation in politics while women prefer to support a man as a politician instead of a woman.

According to Mubarak, centuries of patriarchal society cannot be changed with a simple law, moreover women bear part of the responsibility by not participating effectively in trade unions and other associations, despite working in all sectors.

“The political environment in Kuwait is still prejudiced, and social stereotypes continue to see women as unfit to practice politics” she adds.

According to Mubarak there is a wide gap between women and men in leadership positions where women occupy no more than 11.9 percent of decision making positions, although they make up 64 percent of the country’s students and 59 percent of the Kuwaiti labour force.