Qatari Women Navigating Gendered Space

Abstract

ADespite growing interest in the lived experience of Muslim women in Arab countries, there is still a dearth of studies on the Gulf region. This article focuses on Qatar, a Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) country, to explore its changing sociocultural landscape and reflect on Qatari women's agency within the framework of the traditional gendered space model. Applying Grounded Theory methodology to data collected from a variety of scholarly and non-scholarly sources, the author offers a themed overview of factors that facilitate and constrain Qatari women's mobility. The findings testify to a significant increase in female presence and visibility in the public sphere-specifically in the spaces of education, employment, and sports. They also show that young Qatari women exercise agency through navigating the existing systems rather than question traditional socio-cultural norms. The paper identifies this search for a middle ground between tradition and modernity and its ideological underpinnings as the area of future research that should be led by Qatari women themselves.

Sports and Qatar's empowered woman narrative

“…These include the Qatar Total Open, a championship sponsored by the Women's Tennis Association, and an international cycling competition, the Ladies Tour of Qatar cycling competition. By glorifying women athletes and promoting women's sporting events, the Qatari government is able to demonstrate a commitment to female equality and empowerment (Foley et al, ; Golkowska ; Knez et al, ).…”

A Conceptual Model of Work-Family Balance Among Qatari Adults

“…Third, Qatari women continue to face culturally-based mandates rooted in Islamic tradition that perpetuate gender roles, impeding noticeable shifts in family responsibilities (Williams et al, 2013). Indeed, Qatari women remain responsible for extended family and familial obligations (Afiouni, 2014;Golkowska, 2017).…”

“…Qatari women traditionally hold the home caretaker role, and men assume the patriarchal role of breadwinner. Women's employment, if supported by husbands, is expected to be in education, health care, or clerical branches of public sectors to minimize working hours (Golkowska, 2014(Golkowska, , 2017. As Bahramitash (2007) cogently stated, women's workforce participation in cultural contexts with strong notions of family centrality and strict gender-based divisions of labor create vexing challenges, especially for women.…”

Muslim Mobilities and Gender: An Introduction

“…The composition of the articles of this special issue show the variety of how Muslim mobility and gender can be studied as dynamic social fields, on the one hand (Byng 2017;Giuliani et al 2017; in this issue). On the other hand, it provides insight into the possibilities of using it as theoretical lens to investigate the respective other fields: Mobility can be used as a theoretical lens (and, therewith, as an inclusive category, see (Kramer 2017) in this issue) to investigate gender (Daoud 2017;Golkowska 2017; in this issue). A theoretical gender optic (Lücking and Eliyanah 2017; Shanneik 2017; Wagner 2017; in this issue) or a more complex theoretical approach, i.e., intersectionality, can be used as a lens to approach im/mobility (McLean and Higgins-Opitz 2017; Bianchi 2017; Amin 2017; in this issue).…”