Despite the considerable development in Kuwait with regards to women’s rights. She is still marginalized especially at leadership positions, and we find them restricted to a few repeated names that do not give any space for new faces.
Women in Kuwait had such rich experience demanding their feminine rights, and this struggle and demands were eventually successful especially those demands related to nomination and voting in the parliamentary elections. So that, in 2005, the parliament approved the political rights of women after years of rejection and argument. Whereby, four Kuwaiti women entered the gates of the parliament and made history for Kuwaiti women. However, unlike the experience of men in the parliament, women’s experience in the parliament was repeatedly stigmatized as a failure ignoring the fact that this is the first time women get into such challenge despite the several past years since women first entered the parliament. Especially there are some sayings that are repeatedly released from time to time that, “Woman is the enemy of woman” and that,” If women rule, they will oppress their peers of women”. We do not generalize for men, but generalization is permissible with regards to issues related to women and we, the women, shoulder the mistakes of others. The same thing happens with non-profit organizations, where seldom we can see any women in the board of directors of any non-profit organization in the country. Therefore, the role of women in such organizations is restricted to voting and feeble participation in election campaigns!
I am completely confident that women are more capable of making the best decisions by virtue of her ability and natural instincts given to her from God. Moreover, women are less aggressive, less controlling, less eager to gain powers and way more capable of caring for everyone. If we were looking for relentless energy and determination in women, history tells so many stories of mighty women such as Margret Thatcher, well-known with the title “Iron Lady”, and she was described as one of the three best Prime Ministers of the UK in the 20th Century, Tansu Çiller, Shenny Shipley and Gro Harlem Brundtland. So, why passing laws that grant women their rights if those rights are not actually exercised? They will not be useful unless we activate them, or else such laws will be mere ink on paper.
Today, despite the fact that Kuwaiti woman attained their rights, she actually suffers from many issues on the ground including but not limited to the Housing Law, the rights of Kuwaiti women married to foreigners and not allowing the children of Kuwaiti women married to foreigners to own any real-estates inherited from their mothers in order to prohibit ownership of foreigners in Kuwait. Not to mention some legislations such as the Penal Law with regards to crimes well-known with the title “Honor Crimes”. Surely, only women can understand women and she is absolutely capable of relying her message to others. So, how much more time we have to wait until we see women in the parliament once more? And witness her active participation and sufficient representation in the parliament? And in the board of directors of non-profit organizations? Eventually, somebody once said, “If they asked me about efficacy of women, I say she was effective making me the man who I am”.