QATARI WOMEN: FROM SYMBOLIC VISIBILITY TO OPERATIONALIZING EXISTING COMMITMENTS

Abstract

This thesis examines how Qatar's commitments framed within international gender equality frameworks are operationalized in practice and explores what the tensions between symbolic visibility and structural constraint reveal about the possibilities and limits of institutional transformation for Qatari women. Qatar’s formal commitments are articulated through three successive National Development Strategies (2011-2030) under the overarching Qatar National Vision 2030 and international frameworks including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5). Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge and disciplinary power, and on postcolonial feminist scholarship through anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod and feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, the research employs systematic content analysis of the three National Development Strategies to trace how gender equality commitments are framed, prioritized, and implemented across successive planning cycles. The analysis reveals a consistent pattern of strategic selectivity: the state invests in women's education, maternal roles, and workforce participation, while systematically avoiding reform of the legal structures governing male guardianship, differential nationality laws, and women's meaningful participation in political life, which most directly constrain women's autonomy. Despite measurable progress in education and employment, these gains have not translated into legal autonomy or substantive political representation. After fifteen years of stated commitments, Qatari women still cannot pass citizenship to their children, require male permission for key life decisions, and hold fewer political seats despite comprising the majority of university graduates. The thesis concludes that the foundations for deeper institutional transformation already exist within Qatar's formal commitments and identifies concrete pathways to more fully realize these obligations before 2030.

Date of Award	2026
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Humanities and Social Science