Attitudes shift for Arab women

Violent conflicts in the Middle East have obscured an important step toward equality in the region. In Saudi Arabia, for example, women now make up 35% of the workforce, already exceeding the government’s target of 30% by 2030. In Kuwait, 58% of women are formally employed. Women now hold positions as ambassadors, ministers, university presidents, and judges. Those changes represent a “seismic shift in women’s work opportunities over the past decade,” noted Jennifer Peck, economics professor at Swarthmore College, in Foreign Affairs recently.

Such efforts coincide with a wider reform in religious thinking. Last month, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation held a summit of ministers and scholars to advance women’s rights in Muslim societies. The gathering was based on a document adopted by the organization’s 57 member states in May that grounds gender equality in Islamic law.

Many other Mideast countries seek a more globally competitive workforce, causing changes in norms about female employment. Researchers have found one beneficial effect: A study by Arab Barometer reveals that having more women in the workplace raises their status at home. “If more men have wives and daughters who have held a job, it appears that support for the male household head unilaterally making family decisions is likely to decrease,” it found.

In Morocco and Mauritania, the study stated, “regardless of whether society has traditionally viewed decisions as a ‘man’s job’ or ‘woman’s job’, being related to a woman who has held a job encourages gender neutral views. We see movement towards shared responsibility.”

That insight, based on research in seven countries across North Africa and the Middle East, adds evidence that opposition to gender equality may yield more readily than assumed – even in traditionally male-dominated societies. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research of perceptions of gender norms in 60 countries, revised in February, found that men and women more often align in their support for equality.

“Misperceptions of gender norms are ubiquitous around the globe,” one author of the study, Stanford economist Alessandra Voena, said in a Stanford interview last year. “Simply informing people that their perceptions of those norms are wrong could be a very effective way to make meaningful progress far more quickly.”

Gains in the workplace for Mideast women are raising expectations of further social change. Kuwait, for example, acknowledged that an “empowering environment” for women must include an end to the traditional forms of violence they endure, such as honor killings.

The wars in the region – from Gaza to Yemen to Sudan – have imposed a disproportionate harm on women and girls. Yet the Middle East has another story to tell – of peaceful gains in equality and respect for its female citizens.