Perceptions of Women’s Roles between Traditionalism and Modernity in Qatar

Abstract

Women’s participation in public life in the Arabian Peninsula is affected by tradition and limits their opportunities for socio-economic development. This study focuses on the social structures that impose gender inequality. Through in-depth focus group discussions with groups of men and women in different age groups and including both working and non-working individuals, gender roles are examined and the view of the different groups of men and women in Qatar of the roles that women are supposed to play inside and outside the home. Although some changes are occurring due to modernization, including education and other government policies, they are proving relatively minor: obstacles include deep-rooted kinship structure and cultural elements that limit women’s participation in the public sphere.

Keywords:

• gender roles
• kinship
• modernization
• patriarchy
• women’s participation
• women’s rights
• public life

Notes

1 See Kelly, “Recent Gains and New Opportunities for Women’s Rights in the Gulf Arab States”, Freedom House (2009).

2 See Fishburn and Yanagisako (eds), Gender and Kinship: Essays Toward a Unified Analysis (1987); Sahlins, “Deserted Islands of History: A Reply to Jonathan Friedman”, Critique of Anthropology 8.3 (1988), pp. 41–51.

3 See Sahlins, “What Kinship Is”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17.1 (2011), pp. 2–19.

4 See Peletz, “Kinship Studies in Late Twentieth-Century”, Anthropology Annual Review of Anthropology 24.1 (1995), pp. 343–72; and Amiri, Hunt, and Sova, “Transition within Tradition: Women’s Participation in Restoring Afghanistan”, Sex Roles 51 (2004), pp. 283–91.

5 See Uthara, “Patriarchy: Theoretical Postulates and Empirical Findings”, Sociological Bulletin 58.2 (2009), pp. 253–72.

6 See Ansur, “Al-ʾusra fī al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī: min al-ʾabawīya ilā al-shirāka”, ʿĀlam al-fikr 36.3 (2008), pp. 281–325.

7 Al-Haidarī, Al-naqd bayna al-hadātha wa mā baʿda al-hadātha (2012).

8 Joseph, “Patriarchy and Development in the Arab World”, Gender & Development 4.2 (1996), pp. 14–19.

9 Sharābī, Al-niẓām al-batrīrki wa mushkilat al-takhlīf fī al-mujtamaʿ al-ʿArabi (1993).

10 Ibid, pp. 47–9.

11 Labīb, “Al-ʾusra al-ʿArabiyya: muqārabāt naẓariyya”, Al-Mustaqbal Al-ʿArabī 27 (2004), pp.79–102.

12 See Al-Haidarī, Al-niẓam al-ʾabawī wa ʾishkāliyāt al-jins bayna al-ʿArab (2002), pp. 47–9.

13 Ibid., pp. 47–9 .

14 See Abu-Lughod’s discussion of the role of kinship (qarāba) in women’s lives in the Awlad ʿAli tribe: Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in Bedouin Society (1999), pp. 53–5.

15 See Barakāt, Al-mujtamaʿ al-ʿArabī fi al-qarn al-ʿishrīn: al-bahth fī ẓurūf al-taghyīr wa al-ʿalaqāt (2000).

16 Al-Ghanim, “The Hierarchy of Authority Based on Kinship, Age, and Gender in the Extended Family in the Arab Gulf States”, International Journal of the Jurisprudence of the Family 3 (2013), pp. 481–97.

17 See McLean and Anderson, “Brave Men and Timid Women? A Review of the Gender Differences in Fear and Anxiety”, Clinical Psychology Review 29 (2009), pp. 496–505.

18 See Barakāt, Al-mujtamaʿ al-ʿArabī fī al-qarn al-ʿishrīn (2000).

19 See Fishburne Collier and Yanagisako, “Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender and Kinship” (1987), where they discuss the feminist uses of kinship and gender concepts as a framework for analyzing women’s history. They conclude that the interpretations of researchers are related to anthropological explanations of kinship structures that have been in place since the nineteenth century. These interpretations may not fit the circumstances of communities today.

20 See El-Azhary’s historical review of women and family lineages: El-Azhary (ed.), “The Family in Gulf History”, Gulf Women, ed. El-Azhary (2012), pp. 316–22. Also see Al-Ghanim’s analysis of the gender hierarchy within the extended family in the region in Al-Ghanim, “The Hierarchy of Authority Based on Kinship, Age, and Gender” (2013).

21 See Ibrāhīm, Al-sard al-nisāwi: al-thaqāfa al-ʾabawiyya , al-hawīya al-anthawīya, wa al-jism (2011), pp. 21–34.

22 Ibrāhīm, in Al-sard al-nisāwi, has argued that the historical cultural realities of women in the Middle East are being reproduced in the present day. See also Al-Najjār, Al-marʾa fī al-Khalīj al-ʿArabī wa tahawwulāt al-hadātha al-ʿaṣīra (2000), pp. 107–09.

23 Al-Najjār, Al-marʾa fī al-Khalīj al-ʿArabī wa tahawwulāt al-hadātha al-ʿaṣīra (2000), pp. 103–17; also see Al-Najjār, “Taʾrīkh al-harāka al-nisāʾiyya fi al-Khalīj: al-taʿlīm wa al-waʿy wa al-taʾsīsa: al-bidāyāt”, Al-Majalla 12 (2013).

24 Al-Najjār, Al-marʾa fī al-Khalīj al-ʿArabī (2000), pp. 46–54.

25 Al-Ghānim, Al-muʿāwiqāt allatī tahidd min qudrat al-marʾa ʿala tawali al-manāsib al-qiyāḍiyya (2008).

26 Al-ʿĪsā, Al-taḥdīth fī al-mujtamaʿ al-Qaṭarī: dirāsa tahlīliya li-khasāyis al-taghyīr al-ijtimāʿī al-muʿāṣir (1982).

27 For more discussions on the changing work roles of women in Qatari society and the region, see: Al-Misnad, “Al-taghyīr fī waḍʿ al-marʾa al-Qaṭarīya fī al-ijtimaʿal-Qatari: al-taʿlīm wa suq al-ʿamal”, Kitāb muʾtamar qaḍāyā taghyīr fī al-ijtimaʿal-Qatari al-muʿāṣir fī al-qarn al-ʿishrin, vol. 2 (1991), pp. 212–34; Ḥamīd and Fakhroo, “Ittijāhāt al-shabāb al-Qaṭarī”, Al-majalla al-sanawiyya li-kulliyat al-tarbia 6 (1989). For a discussion of women in the UAE, see Al-Mutawwaʿ, “Taghyīr niẓām al-qiyam wa inʿikāsātihā ʿala wadʿ al-marʾa fi mujtamaʿ al-ʾImārāt: dirāsa muqārina bayna ʿayāna min al-nisāʾ al-ʿāmilāt wa ghayyr alʿāmilāt al-mutaʿallimāt”, Al-shuʾūn al-ijtimāʿiya 30.2 (2002), pp. 347–79; Al-Sayegh, “Al-marʾa fī al-ʾimārāt: dirāsa taʾrīkhīya ʿan wāqiʿ al-marʾa wa tatawwurhā fī al-qarn alʿishrīn”, Majallat al ʿulūm al-insaniyāt wa al-ijtimāʿiya 11 (1995), pp. 206–34; Al Jāssim, “Al-marʾa, al-tʿalīm wa sūq al-ʿāmil fī al-ʾimārāt al-ʿArabiyya al-muttaḥida”, Al-shuʾūn al-ijtimāʿiya 8.31 (1991), pp.181–88; Crabtree, “Culture, Gender and the Influence of Social Change amongst Emirati Families in the United Arab Emirates”, Journal of Comparative Family Studies 38 (2007), pp. 575–87.

28 See Al-Ghanim, “The Hierarchy of Authority Based on Kinship, Age, and Gender” (2013) for more analysis about Khaleeji women’s roles in the extended family.

29 For example see, Crabtree, “Culture, Gender and the Influence of Social Change amongst Emirati Families in the United Arab Emirates”; Al-Sayegh, “Al-marʾa wa mushārakatuhā al-siyāsīya fī al-Khalīj: al-taḥaddiyāt wa ʿilāj”, Views on the Gulf: UAE 45 (2008), pp. 29–31; Shanfarī, “Al-marʾa fī masīrat majlis al-taʿāwun”, Nadwat al-marʾa wa al-tanmiya fī duwal majlis al-taʿāwun li-duwal al-Khalīj al-ʿArabiyya (2010), pp. 15–22.

30 See Krause,“Gender and Participation in the Gulf States”, LSE Kuwait Programme on Development, Governance and Globalization in the Gulf States research paper 4 (2009); Kelly, “Recent Gains and New Opportunities for Women’s Rights in the Gulf Arab States”.

31 See Al-Muhannadi, The Role of Qatari Women: Between Tribalism and Modernity, MA diss. (2011).

32 Al-Ghanim, “Transitional Society and Participation of Women in the Public Sphere: A Survey of Qatar Society”, International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research 3.2 (2017), pp. 51–63.

33 For example see: Al-Aṭiya, “Dawr al-marʾa fī al-tanmiyya al-mustadāma fī duwal majlis taʿāwun al-khalīj al-ʿArabiyya”, Al-taʿāwun 68 (2009), pp. 82–95; Al-Mutawwaʿ, “Taghyīr niẓām al-qiyam wa inʿikāsātihā ʿalā wadʿ al-marʾa fi mujtamaʿ al-ʾImārāt” (2002); Al-Sayegh, “Al-marʾa fī al-ʾImārāt: dirāsa taʾrīkhīyaʿan wāqiʿal-marʾa wa tatawwurhā fī al-qarn alʿishrīn”, Majallat al-ʿulūm al-insaniyāt wa al-ijtimāʿiya 11 (1995), pp. 206–34; Krause, “Gender and Participation in the Gulf States”; Sulaiman and Al-Muftah, “A Qatari Perspective on Women in the Engineering Pipeline: An Exploratory Study”, European Journal of Engineering Education 35.5 (2010), pp. 507–17; Crabtree, “Culture, Gender and the Influence of Social Change amongst Emirati Families in the United Arab Emirates”.

34 Al-Munajjed, Women in Saudi Arabia Today (1997), p. 104.

35 See Abdul Ḥamīd and Fakhroo, “Ittijāhāt al-shabāb al-Qaṭarī”, Al-majalla al-sanawiyya li-kulliyat al-tarbiya 6 (1989), pp. 475–550.

36 See Al-Ghānim, Al-muʿāwiqāt allatī taḥidd min qudrat al-marʾa ʿalā tawāli al-manāsib al-qiyādiyya (2008).

37 Findlow, “Higher Education and Linguistic Dualism in the Arab Gulf”, British Journal of Sociology of Education 27.1 (2006), pp. 19–36.

38 Ibid.

39 United Nations Development Programme, Arab Human Development Report 2005: Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World (2006).

40 Abdul Aẓīm, Al-thaqāfa al-ʿArabiyya al-muʿāsira wa taʾthīratuhā ʿalā munaẓẓamāt al-mujtmaʿ al-madanī (2008).

41 See Joseph, “Patriarchy and Development in the Arab World”.

42 See Saleem, Al-marʾa al-ʿArabiyya bayna thiql al-wāqiʿ wa tatalluʿāt al-taḥarrur (1999); Al-Sayegh, “Al-marʾa fī al-ʾImārāt”; Al-Munajjed, Women in Saudi Arabia Today (1997).

43 For example see Gamāl, Al-marʾa fī dual al-Khalīj alʿarabī: dirāsa maydania (1983); ʿĪd, “Al-marʾat wa al-taghyīr fī mujtamaʿāt al-Khalīj al-ʿArabiyya”, Qaḍāyā al-taghyīr fī al-mujtamaʿ al-Qaṭarī khilāl al-qarn al-ʿishrīn Symposium (1989), pp. 236–75; ʿAllam, “Almarʾa fi sūq al-ʿamal al-rasmī: madākhil naẓariyya wa namūdhaj muqtāra li-dirāsat al-marʾa wa al-ʿamal fī al-duwal al-Khalījiyya”, Al-shuʾūn al-ijtimāʿiya 8 (1991), pp. 23–65.

44 See Al-Ghanim, Al-muʿāwiqāt allatī tahidd min qudrat al-marʾa ʿalā tawali al-manāsib al-qiyādiyya (2008).

45 Sulaiman and Al-Muftah, “A Qatari Perspective on Women in the Engineering Pipeline: An Exploratory Study” (2010).

46 Mir-Hossein, “Gender Rights and the Islamic Legal Tradition”, Gulf Women, ed. El-Azhary (2012), pp. 343–66.

47 See Jawad, The Rights of Women in Islam: An Authentic Approach (1998).

48 See Al-Ghazzālī, Tanṭawī, and Aḥmad, Al-marʾa fi al-Islām (1991).

49 See Nadwi, Al-Muhaddithāt: The Women Scholars in Islam (2016); Helminski, Nisaʾ al-ṣūfiyya: kanz khāfī (2003); and Jawad, The Rights of Women in Islam: An Authentic Approach (1998).

50 See Daboul, Tarājim ʿālam al-nisāʾ (1998), which offers the biographies of 557 Muslim Women who played a major role in politics, justice, science, literature, poetry, etc. during the period from the emergence of Islam until the beginning of the twentieth century.

51 See Al-Najjār, Al-marʾa fī al-Khalīj al-ʿArabī wa tahāwulāt al-hadātha al-ʿāṣira (2000).

52 Jawad, The Rights of Women in Islam: An Authentic Approach (1998), pp. 44–6.

53 See Qatar Statistics Administration, Labor Force Survey (2011), Table 9.

54 See Qatar Statistics Administration, Labor Force Survey (2012), Table 2.

55 The Permanent Constitution of the State of Qatar states in Article 35 that “all people are equal before the law without discrimination based on sex, origin, language, or religion.”

56 See Table 2 of the report of the State of Qatar for the millennium goals for the year 2012 [Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, Qatar, Report for the Millennium Goals for the Year (2012), p 25].

57 See: Āl Bū ʿAinain et al., Taqrīr al-marʾa wa al-rajul: ṣūra ihsāʾīya (2012), p. 63, Tables 6–5.

58 For a discussion of the extent to which the laws in the Gulf States, including Qatari society, represent gender issues, see Al-Ghanim, “The Hierarchy of Authority Based on Kinship, Age, and Gender in the Extended Family in the Arab Gulf States” (2013). Also see Maktabi, “Gender, Family Law, and Citizenship in Syria”, Citizenship Studies 14.5 (2010), p. 557 (showing that most laws establish different statuses for men and women, increasing gender inequality).

59 See Shaier, “Entry into International Treaties for the Legislation of the Country”, research paper presented at a seminar on “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women under Islamic Law” (2011); see also Jād Allah, “Al-ishkāliyāt al-qanūnīya hawla al-ʿunf al-ʾusri fī dawlat Qaṭar”, Kitāb awrāq al-ʿamal, warshat taṭwīr ijrāʾāt muwajihāt al-ʿunf ḍidd al-marʾa fī dawlat Qaṭar (2006).

60 Kress and Shoffner, “Focus Groups: A Practical and Applied Research Approach for Counsellors”, Journal of Counselling and Development 85 (2007), p. 190.

61 See Morgan, “Focus Groups”, Annual Review of Sociology 22 (1996), pp. 129–52.

62 Bureau of Statistics, Qatar, Al-iʿtidād al-ʿāmm lil-iskān (2010).

63 See Levitan and Belous, “Working Wives and Mothers: What Happens to Family life?”, Monthly Labor Review 104.9 (1981), pp. 26–30.

64 Since the 1970s, the presence of the extended family in communities in the Gulf has gradually declined in favor of the nuclear family pattern. See the Standing Population Committee’s series of population studies in The Qatari Family : Evolution , Patterns , Their Living Conditions and the Challenges They Face 7 (2009), pp. 25–7.

65 This custom is associated with the tribal patriarchal structure, which is based on blood bonds and considers the father’s cousins a part of the family and kinship group. This structure gives a woman’s cousin the right to marry her (and priority in doing so) and to prevent her from marrying another man, even if the cousin is married. This right exists even if the woman has multiple cousins. Priority is given to the first cousin who asks the woman’s father or brother for her hand in marriage or to prevent others from marrying her by saying “bint ʿammī maḥḥjūra lī” [my cousin is reserved for me]. In the past, if a woman’s father or brother allowed her to marry another man, her cousin had the right to kill him. Although this practice has been abolished, it still influences the choice of spouses.

66 There is abundant evidence of this custom in the marriage contracts in the Arab countries, where marriage between cousins is still widespread, accounting for one-third of all marriages in some communities and almost half of all marriages in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Palestine, Jordan, and in rural areas in Egypt and Algeria. See: Al-Ghanim, “Consanguineous Marriage in Qatar: Marriage Selection in a Society in Transition”, presented at the International Conference on Humanities, Historical, and Social Sciences, Singapore, 26–8 February 2010; Shurgya, Mdlej, and Abdul Nasser, “Taḥdīd mustawā maʿrifat wa mawāqif ṭullāb ṣufūf al-ʿāshir hawla al-ʾamrāḍ al-wirāthia wa zawāj al-ʾaqārib min qaryatayn mukhtāratayn min minṭaqat al-muthlath”, Majallat Al-Risala 14 (2006), p.188; Tadmouri, Nair, and Obeid, “Genetic Disorders in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman: Lessons Learned”, Genetic Disorders in the Arab World (2006), pp. 78–105; Jaber et al., “Effects of Consanguineous Marriage on Reproductive Outcome in an Arab Community in Israel”, Journal of Medical Genetics 34.12 (1998), pp. 1000–2; Alghazali, Hamamy, and Al-Arrayad, “Genetic Disorders in the Arab World”, British Medical Journal 333 (2006), pp. 831–34.

67 See Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, Qatar, An Analytical Summary of Marriage and Divorce in Qatar (2017), p. 68, Table 17/1.

68 This result is consistent with the findings of Al-Muraikhī in her case study of the Qatari family: Al-Muraikhī, Al-ṣulṭa fi al-ʾusra al-Qaṭariya, unpublished graduate research project, Qatar University: Department of Social Sciences (2010).

69 Article 26 of the Family Code of the State of Qatar, No. 22 of 2006, speaks of the central guardian in the marriage contract as follows: “The guardian in marriage is the father, then the grandfather, then the brother, then the son, then the father’s brother, then the father’s uncle. The guardian must be male, sane, adult, and applicable to be a guardian during pilgrimage, and a Muslim if in a Muslim state.” Article 29 stipulates a judge’s right to regard a marriage contract as complete if he finds that the woman’s guardian hindered her marriage or as incomplete if the guardian forced the girl to marry. The state law includes that women can marry only while the disposition of the inheritance and money is guaranteed and at the legal age of marriage, which is 18 years old, according to No. 189 of the Family Code. However, there are procedures, even if not specifically stated by the laws, which define the scope of travel for married woman and children less than 18 years of age for males and females.

70 Al-Kubaisī, Al-shirāka fī al-ʾusra al-Qaṭariyya (2010), pp. 29–34.

71 Al-Ghanim, “Transitional Society and Participation of Women in the Public Sphere” (2017).

72 Al-Ghanim, “Contemporary Women’s Work: Youth Attitudes towards Women’s Roles between Work and Family” (2016).

73 Perhaps surprisingly, in the context of nomadic life in the region before the discovery of oil, women did not face significant limitations when interacting with the external environment. See El-Azhary’s discussion on the presence of women in the public space in the region, in her introduction to Gulf Women (2012), pp. 16–19.

74 The participants’ attitudes towards women assuming leadership positions consistent with the results of a 2007 survey. See Al-Ghānim et al, Ittijāhāt al-Qaṭariyīn naḥwa al-mushāraka al-siyāsīya: al-muʿāwiqāt wa subūl al-tamkīn (2007).

75 Ibid.; Al-Ghānim, Al-muʿāwiqāt allatī tahidd min qudrat al-marʾa ʿalā tawali al-manāsib al-qiyādiyya (2008).

76 Al-Ghānim et al., Ittijāhāt al-Qaṭariyīn naḥwa al-mushāraka al-siyāsīya (2007).

77 Al-Husseinī and Al-ʿĪsā, “Dirāsat al-mawāqif wa al-qiyam al-mutaʿāliqa bi-al-zawāj fī al-mujtamaʿ al-Qaṭarī”, Hawliat kulliyat al-ʾadab wa al-ʿulūm 3 (1981), pp. 39–66.

78 See Al-Ghānim, Al-muʿāwiqāt allatī tahidd min qudrat al-marʾa ʿalā tawali al-manāsib al-qiyādiyya (2008); Al-Ghanim, “Transitional Society and Participation of Women in the Public Sphere” (2017).