The Arab Spring may have disenfranchised Arab women Dubai Women have been further marginalised and their political role diminished after the Arab Spring both in countries that witnessed an uprising and those that didn’t, Dr Fatima Al Sayegh said at a conference yesterday.
The symposium, called “The Situation of Arab Women in the Light of Recent Developments and Current Changes” Symposium, hosted a number of prominent Arab and Emirati researchers and intellectuals.
Fatima, who is an associate professor in the history and archaeology department at UAE University, said women played a positive and prominent role during the uprisings, taking to the streets with their male counterparts to call for full civil rights.
Fellow speaker Hashim Al Taai’ made the same observation at The Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation event.
But Fatima said it was disappointing that women were not given the credit they deserved for the efforts they made.
Fatima added that in the new democratic climate, she expected women to become dramatically more prominent in political circles. “Instead it has declined further — even in countries that did not witness an uprising — under the pretext of flimsy reasons, obsolete beliefs and misinterpretations of religious principles and history,” she said.
Egypt’s and Tunisia’s new parliaments have reflected this marginalisation of women,” she said.
“Arab democracies have proved that they are male–dominated democracies with a majority of men taking parliamentary positions.” Fatima said.
“Even in the UAE, the number of women in the parliament has declined from 22.5 per cent to around 15 per cent or even less and in Kuwait women have lost all their seats in the parliament.”
She said this decline raised a lot of questions.
“Is this a reflection of the general decline of women’s participation in public life or is it a negative reaction to the constant western pressure to involve women in public life?,” Fatima said.
What is really needed to understand the reasons behind this decline, is detailed scientific and systematic research, she said.