Gender and Nation Building in Qatar: Qatari Women Negotiate

Modernity

Alainna Liloia

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Volume 15, Number 3, November

2019, pp. 344-366 (Article)

Published by Duke University Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/739002

[ Access provided at 27 Aug 2021 13:13 GMT from Syracuse University ]

Gender and Nation Building in Qatar
Qatari Women Negotiate Modernity

ALAINNA LILOIA

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between gender and modern nation building
in Qatar, with attention to how Qatari women negotiate the challenges of modern develop-
ment and social change. The article analyzes Qatar’s strategic use of gendered nation-building
initiatives, founded on representations of women as both symbols of tradition and markers of
modernity, to facilitate modern development and construct a national identity. In addition,
the article uncovers the myriad ways Qatari women respond to the state’s gendered initiatives
and dualistic expectations, engage with state conceptualizations of modernity and tradition,
and negotiate social and religious gender norms. The article argues that Qatari women’s views
reflect their strategic negotiation, rather than uncritical submission or acceptance, of social
and religious norms alongside increased expectations for participation in the workforce and
higher education. The study, derived from fifteen qualitative interviews with Qatari women
aged twenty-six to fifty-six, unearths certain trends in participant views on gender roles, modern
development, and tradition. The participants express satisfaction with and a desire to maintain
established gender paradigms. They simultaneously emphasize the positive aspects of mod-
ernization and express concern about a loss of traditional values.
KEYWORDS Qatari women, modernity, nation building

W e weren’t prepared to be rich,” a young Qatari businesswoman observes, when

asked about modern development in Qatar.1 This thirty-year-old woman,
who was born into a wealthy family in a “post-oil” society, nonetheless identifies
with the struggles of life before the oil boom, when the perilous pearl-diving trade
was the nation’s primary source of revenue (see also Limbert 2010). It is no secret
that Qatar has changed drastically since its first discovery of oil in 1939. Processes
of modernization and economic development have led to shifts in the nation’s social,

JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 • November 2019

DOI 10.1215/15525864-7720683 • © 2019 by the Association for Middle East Women’s Studies
344
cultural, and political landscape, and the discovery of natural gas in the 1970s fueled
Qatar’s rise to become the wealthiest state in the world. Literal changes in landscape,
such as new highways, artificial islands, and skyscrapers, now characterize Qatar’s
modern “brand,” accompanied by government initiatives to construct or revitalize
national heritage, culture, and tradition (cooke 2014). Prepared or not, the transi-
tion to an oil-driven economy has forced the small state of Qatar to contend with
new political and social challenges, particularly that of balancing modern develop-
ment with the preservation of tradition and cultural authenticity.
Qatari women find themselves at the center of the state’s struggle to meet
the demands of modernization within a “traditional” cultural framework, as gen-
der roles and norms are deeply impacting the state’s engagement with “modernity”
and vice versa. The state of Qatar is strategically using gendered political projects
and discourses to facilitate modern development and construct a national identity,
and Qatari women are facing their own challenges in balancing the pressures of
modernization with social norms and expectations. This article argues that Qatari
women’s engagement with the state’s dualistic expectations, founded on represen-
tations of women as both symbols of tradition and markers of modernity, is char-
acterized by strategic negotiation of religious, cultural, and social expectations and
norms. As demonstrated here, while Qatari women express a desire to embrace
what they perceive as positive aspects of modernization, they also express a desire to

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

maintain established gender paradigms, certain “traditional” social and religious
values, and an authentic cultural identity. As a result, their views on modernity,
tradition, and gender roles both reflect and resist the discourses of the state. This
study draws from current scholarship on the relationship between gender and
modernization in the Middle East, including scholarship on Qatari women, and
contributes an analysis that adds to the existing research.

Women as Symbols of Tradition and Markers of Modernity

Many scholars have addressed the relationship between gender and modernization
in the Middle East and South Asia, examining how states and religious institutions
have deployed gender representations in their constructions of envisioned nations
(Abu-Lughod 1998a; Joseph and Slyomovics 2001; Kandiyoti 1991, 2001). Their
scholarship draws attention to the implicit contradictions between representations
of women as both symbols of tradition and markers of modernity in Middle Eastern
states and the ways in which women have been seemingly caught between com-
peting ideologies and agendas throughout history. For example, while secular 345

nationalists have often presented women’s increased participation in public life as

a form of modern “progress” and proof of the compatibility between “modernity”
and Islam, religious conservatives have often viewed it as a “capitulation to Western
cultural imperialism” to be guarded against (Kandiyoti 1991: 3). Both groups use
 women as symbols to propagate their agendas. Important scholarship has com-
plicated the binaries (modern/traditional, religious/secular, etc.) often invoked in
analysis of gender representations in the Middle East, demonstrating that women’s
engagement in society reflects the intersection of a multiplicity of social, religious,
and political factors and concerns (Abu-Lughod 1998b; Deeb 2006; Hafez 2011).
Madawi Al-Rasheed argues that the Saudi state’s nation-building projects
have been characterized by an ideology of “religious nationalism,” which differs from
the anticolonial secular nationalist ideologies that shaped nation building in other
Arab states and resulted from the marriage of the state to the Wahhabi religious
tradition. Since women’s roles and behaviors are often viewed as a litmus test for the
morality of society, the state has engaged in the preservation of traditional gender
norms and represented women as symbols of religious piety to maintain social
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

stability and the support of religious institutions (Al-Rasheed 2013: 25). At the
same time, it has promoted women’s increased educational and career opportunities
as proof of the nation’s modernization and presented women to the international
community as markers of modernity (77, 135). While the legal traditions derived
from Wahhabism are applied much differently in Qatar, the Qatari state also ele-
vates traditional family roles as proof of the preservation of religious and cultural
principles, while using women’s increased educational and career opportunities to
present itself in an appealing way to the international community.
In Qatar the invoking of religious ideologies in state constructions of a
national identity alongside the state’s regulation of women’s behavior reflects the
intersection of social and religious norms and structures with political agendas
and institutions. The state formed an alliance with religious scholars that involves
the regulation of women’s behavior, which I would argue is due largely to religious
leaders’ retention of the social power necessary to stir political unrest. Gender
relations are central to the perpetual negotiations for political and social power that
take place between religious and political leaders, and Qatari women’s experiences
are shaped by the dynamic interplay between social norms, religious ideologies, and
state agendas. Yet it is not only the state or religious leaders who define the parame-
ters of women’s social engagement; women themselves actively contribute to the
production of gender relations through their own choices in the public and private
realms.
Fortunately, a handful of scholars have begun to address how Qatari women
respond to and impact modernization and social change in the context of the Qatari
346 state’s developmental initiatives, and this article seeks to contribute to the schol-
arship on women in the Gulf states. Jocelyn Sage Mitchell et al. (2014: 1) explore
the conflict between Qatari women’s increased participation in the educational
sphere and workplace and the existence of “social norms and attitudes which pri-
oritize domestic life.” Mitchell et al. argue that the government’s emphasis on
Qatari women’s participation in higher education and the workforce in its human
development strategies conflicts with social norms and other governmental agendas
that prioritize women’s roles in the domestic sphere. In a similar vein, Laurie James-
Hawkins, Yara Qutteina, and Kathryn M. Yount (2017) argue that Qatari women
have responded to the conflict between social norms and participation in higher
education and the workforce in varied ways, with some women prioritizing family
over education and work and others holding conflicting norms without acknowl-
edging a normative conflict. The article also reveals an overall trend among the
Qatari female participants to “have aspirations for higher education and employ-
ment, but simultaneously hold customary norms about the family” (156).
A number of the Qatari women I interviewed spoke of the struggle to bal-
ance domestic responsibilities with their new career and educational opportunities.
However, none of them framed this as a conflict; they simply spoke of it as an
unavoidable reality. While the decision of some of the women to remain unmarried
to focus on their careers and others to delay their careers to focus on raising a family
may imply that a conflict does exist, the women indicated that they would prefer to
strategically navigate the realities of their current social context rather than resist or
attempt to dismantle it. Krystyna Golkowska (2017: 3 of PDF) finds a similar trend
in her study of young Qatari women, who she argues choose to “exercise agency
through navigating the existing systems rather than question traditional socio-
cultural norms” (1 of PDF). In my view, Qatari women’s choices reflect their desire
to embrace positive aspects of modern development while maintaining established

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

gender paradigms. I argue that the choices of Qatari women to comply to estab-
lished gender paradigms are strategic and stem at least partly from their knowl-
edge that these paradigms benefit women financially. Qatari women are actively
participating in the production of gender relations through their choices, and their
views and decisions challenge the perception that Gulf women are passive recipi-
ents of the social, religious, and political expectations imposed on them.
My research also demonstrates that Qatari women’s representations of
modernity and tradition both reflect and resist narratives promoted by the state.
Jane Bristol-Rhys (2016) draws attention to the ways that different generations of
Emirati women view the changes resulting from their nation’s newfound oil wealth
and rapid development. Her analysis offers observations about Emirati women’s
representations of the past, and her study found that Emirati women were con-
cerned with a loss of cultural identity and held a romanticized and nostalgic view of
the pre-oil past (25, 32, 58). Similarly, the Qatari women who participated in my
study expressed nostalgia toward the nation’s past and idealized periods of Qatari
history prior to modernization and development. I demonstrate that they elevated 347

both the preservation of tradition and positive aspects of modernization. In addi-

tion, while these women emphasized the importance of tradition and the benefits of
modernity in a manner that reflected state discourses, they also resisted aspects of
the state’s constructions of tradition.
To situate this study about Qatari women, I use the following section to
 examine the gendered nation-building initiatives of the Qatari state. I show how the
state of Qatar’s bifurcated and often seemingly contradictory approach consists of
simultaneously preserving gender norms that restrict women’s roles in society and
promoting national development strategies that require women’s increased par-
ticipation in higher education and the workforce.

Gendered Nation Building in Qatar

The state of Qatar’s national development strategies, outlined in documents such
as the Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV) and the National Development Strategy
(NDS), reflect the state’s struggle to construct an envisioned nation that balances
modernization with the preservation of tradition. The QNV explicitly outlines its
aim as “transforming Qatar into an advanced country by 2030” (QGSDP 2008: 1).
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

However, the document also offers assurance that the nation will maintain its cul-
tural authenticity: “Despite rapid economic and social gains, as well as political
change, Qatar has maintained its cultural and traditional values as an Arab and
Islamic nation that considers the family to be the main pillar of society” (1).
One of the focal issues on which Qatar’s national vision and development
strategies rest is empowering Qatar’s national population to succeed in the edu-
cational sector and to “increase effective labor force participation” of Qatari citi-
zens (QGSDP 2008: 7). The goal of increasing Qatar’s national workforce is strongly
related to the governmental initiative of Qatarization, which underlies the human
development goals outlined in the national vision and aims to “provide 50 percent
or more of Qatari citizens with meaningful permanent employment” (Qatar Foun-
dation n.d.). The Qatari state’s current focus on Qatarization in its national devel-
opment strategies is a response to an increasing expatriate population and con-
tinued influx of expatriate professionals in the business sector. With an estimated
national population of only 12 percent—a percentage that is likely inflated—the
state of Qatar recognizes the importance of maintaining a distinct cultural identity
and has acknowledged the dangers that a growing expatriate population could pose
to this goal (Winckler 2015: 10).
The Qatari state’s initiatives to increase women’s workforce participation
contribute to efforts to maintain a national identity and reflect the prioritization of
increasing the number of Qataris in the workforce in the state’s national develop-
ment agendas. Women are included in the strategies and outcomes outlined in the
QNV and the NDS, such as the QNV ’s human development outcome of “increased
348 opportunities and vocational support for women” (QGSDP 2008: 18) and the NDS ’s
statement that the national vision anticipates “measures to encourage more Qatari
women to enter paid employment” (QGSDP 2011: 146). However ambitious such
outcomes may sound, the reality of their implementation has come up against a
number of challenges. On the one hand, the enrollment rates of Qatari women in
higher education, including enrollment at Qatar University and the universities
in Education City, are nearly double those of Qatari men, and Qatari women are
outperforming Qatari men academically in higher education (Golkowska 2017: 4
of PDF; Qazi 2015). However, women’s level of participation in the workforce has
not reflected educational trends in higher education (Walker 2016). Although 88
percent of women were pursuing higher education in Qatar in 2016 —the highest
percentage among the Gulf states—national female workforce participation was
about 36 percent (Walker 2016). In addition, the gender gap in workforce partici-
pation remains high in Qatar, with only 13.2 percent of the total labor force women
(World Bank n.d.).
Social norms and expectations that prioritize domestic life create challenges
for Qatari women in balancing domestic responsibilities with increased opportu-
nities to pursue higher education and careers, and the cultural taboos associated
with working or studying in a gender-mixed environment often restrict women’s
educational and career choices (Mitchell et al. 2014). For example, Qatar University’s
status as the only gender-segregated university in Qatar means that it is the only
choice of higher education for Qatari women who will not study in a gender-mixed
environment, usually due to their own preferences or those of their families. Not
surprisingly, as education and workforce participation has increased among Qatari
women, marriage rates have declined. The average age of marriage for Qatari women
has increased since the country’s modernization, and the overall rate of marriage

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

among Qatari citizens has declined in recent years (Bahry and Marr 2005: 114;
Ministry of Development, Planning and Statistics 2016: 9).
Delaying marriage to pursue educational and career opportunities is one way
that Qatari women have negotiated their own roles in the public sphere. Qatari
women have shaped the way their roles in the public sphere are defined through
their personal choices, which are far from monolithic and reflect a heterogeneity
of desires and concerns. While there are certainly trends among Qatari women
in terms of education, workforce participation, and marriage, Qatari women have
negotiated the dualistic expectations imposed on them in a variety of ways, with
some prioritizing domestic responsibilities and others prioritizing educational pur-
suits and careers. Many Qatari women aim to balance roles in the domestic sphere
with engagement in the public sphere, and assumptions should not be made about
women’s views of gender roles based on their professional or personal choices. For
example, some Qatari women who delay marriage to pursue a career may do so
because they hold traditional views of gender roles and wish to marry and raise
a family only when they are ready to put their careers on hold to fulfill domestic 349

responsibilities traditionally assigned to women.

The expectations and pressures imposed on Qatari women stem from a vari-
ety of sources, including the state as well as their families and larger religious and
social communities. The state’s strategies in regulating women’s behavior reflect
cognizance of the influence of social and religious norms and values as well as
 the state’s own efforts to assuage the concerns of religious leaders and citizens that
the nation is in danger of losing its Islamic identity. In addition, the blurred lines
between religious and state institutions make it difficult to categorize the factors
that impact women’s roles in society. This is particularly true in the legal realm,
which promotes particular religious interpretations and traditional gender roles.
The legal norms that target women’s behavior contribute significantly to the
way Qatari women’s roles are defined in the public sphere. In addition to national
development strategies, Qatar’s legal system and legal norms have promoted and
preserved traditional gender norms and religious values in Qatar. Shariʾa law is
the main source of legislation in Qatar, Salafism is the state-sponsored version of
Islam, and the nation adheres to the Wahhabi creed. Personal-status laws and family
laws restrict Qatari women’s rights in several areas. One of the main ways in which
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

family law restricts Qatari women is by granting a certain level of legal authority to
each woman’s male guardian, a role assigned to a girl’s father or to another male
relative if the father cannot fulfill the responsibilities. Qatari law requires Qatari
women to obtain the permission of a guardian to be married, to travel abroad if they
are under twenty-five, and to obtain a driver’s license (Aldosari 2016: 10; Golkowska
2017: 2 of PDF; UNICEF 2011: 2). While a married Qatari woman is not required
to obtain permission from a guardian to travel, her husband may appeal to the courts
if he wants to prevent her from traveling (Golkowska 2017: 2 of PDF). Qatari law
also includes a provision denying marital support to Qatari women who work or
travel without their husbands’ permission (Aldosari 2016: 9).
Furthermore, Qatari women are granted fewer legal rights than men in the
areas of marriage, divorce, and inheritance and in passing nationality to their chil-
dren (Aldosari 2016: 12, 13; UNICEF 2011: 21). Interestingly, while fathers are the
legal guardians of their children, mothers are given physical custody of them, which
is defined as “protecting, raising and caring for a child according to her or his best
interest” (Aldosari 2016: 13). That mothers have physical custody of their children,
while legal authority is given to fathers, is an obvious reflection of patriarchal gender
norms prioritizing women’s roles in the domestic sphere. The legal system in Qatar is
one in which the interplay among patriarchal social values, religious interpretation,
and state power reproduces gender relations that restrict Qatari women’s roles in
society.
The tensions that have developed between the sometimes opposing expec-
tations placed on Qatari women, and the state’s attempts to represent women as
350 both symbols of religious piety and markers of modernity, are also manifested in
controversies surrounding the educational sector. Educational reform has reflected
the state’s struggle to simultaneously promote modernization and maintain cultural
and religious norms. The preservation of gender segregation policies in the pub-
lic educational sphere contributes to state efforts to maintain social stability and
construct a national identity, whereas educational reform in the private educational
sphere contributes to the state’s national development strategies. Gender segrega-
tion policies are consistent with the view that women are bearers of morality and
religious piety who require protection, and the continued gender segregation of all
public schools in the nation has been represented by the state as proof of its efforts
to maintain cultural authenticity. At the same time, the state has allowed for the
development of Western coeducational institutions at all levels of education in the
private sphere in an attempt to meet international educational standards and
increase the state’s global influence, and has represented women’s educational
advancement as proof of modernization.
The influence of Western nations in structuring Qatar’s educational infra-
structure is most evident in the development of Education City, a cluster of cam-
puses that are home to branches of six US universities. In addition, the government
of Qatar commissioned the US RAND Corporation to restructure Qatar’s preuni-
versity educational institutions in 2001 in an effort to bring the educational system
up to international standards (Gengler 2012: 71). While Education City is viewed by
many Qataris as a symbol of progress and prestige, it is viewed by others as a rep-
resentation of the unchecked influence of Westernization in the nation. Further-
more, the lack of gender segregation on the campuses at Education City means that
many Qataris do not consider it a valid option for Qatari women to pursue higher
education. Unsurprisingly, Qataris consistently make up the majority of Qatar

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

University’s student population, whereas non-Qataris account for the majority
of the student population at Education City. In an article about Qatar’s “Western
orientation,” Justin Gengler writes, “It is public misgivings over such Western
domination —with RAND’s historical ties to the U.S. military adding fuel to the
fire—that has [sic] spurred wide-ranging efforts to reassert national and cultural
ownership over the educational sphere” (71). To “combat the perception of Educa-
tion City as a collection of foreign enclaves” (71), the state of Qatar has strategically
implemented policies at Qatar University consistent with the views of conservative
Qatari citizens.
The state of Qatar uses Qatar University as an arena to respond to the con-
cerns of conservative Qatari citizens that the nation is abandoning its cultural
and religious values. Representations of women and gender segregation policies
are central to these attempts, as women’s roles in the spheres of education and the
workplace remain a defining factor in the extent to which the state is perceived
as retaining its cultural and religious identity. Qatar University is viewed by many
Qataris as a representation of authentic cultural values and a bastion of conserva- 351

tive thought. While this perception is not entirely accurate, the state of Qatar has
certainly used Qatar University to appease Qataris who are concerned that the
government is losing sight of important cultural values and traditions, and the
university’s policies of gender segregation have remained at the core of such rep-
resentations. Other concessions made to Qatari citizens by the university include
 the hiring of a university president viewed as having more conservative values than
the previous university president, the reversal of a controversial English-language
policy (Gengler 2012: 71; Lindsey 2012), and a revised version of the university’s
etiquette policy, intended to curb the influence of Western styles of dress and behavior
(Gengler 2012: 71). A final example of how the university has responded to the
concerns of Qatari citizens occurred in 2016, when the president of the university
canceled a debate on the roles of women in Islam because of one debater’s contro-
versial views on male guardianship laws (Hussain 2017).
In tandem with the state’s marshaling of Qatar University as a source of social
stability and national identity, Education City plays an important role in realizing
national developmental agendas and presenting an appealing image of the nation to
the international community. The development of Education City is a project of the
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

Qatar Foundation, which has functioned as a quasi-governmental institution that

explicitly aims to contribute to state agendas, including the QNV and the NDS.
By meeting international standards for higher education, Education City is repre-
sented by the state as concrete proof that the nation is “modern.” Once again,women
are central to this representation—this time as markers of modernity. Facilitating
women’s educational advancement is part of a larger political strategy to construct
an image of the nation appealing to the international community, buttressed by
the appointment of women to visible public positions and the elevation of women’s
achievements (Al-Rasheed 2013: 173). For example, the state of Qatar has repre-
sented Sheikha Moza bint Nasser as a model for young Qatari women and appointed
three women to ministerial positions since 2003. Furthermore, four women were
appointed to the state’s Shura Council in 2017, and two women were elected to the
Municipal Council in 2015.
Public figures both male and female have often received high levels of support
and approval among citizens (Gengler 2012), though the extent to which citizens’
stated views are influenced by fear of governmental repression is certainly a factor
to consider. Likewise, while Qatari women may verbally offer support for the state’s
appointment of women and seem to buy into state discourses regarding women’s
roles in the public sphere, further research is required on potential areas of resis-
tance or disillusionment among Qatari women concerning this topic and others.
For example, my analysis in the following sections raises questions about the degree
to which Qatari women buy into the state’s constructions of tradition, as many women
I interviewed expressed conceptualizations of tradition that differed from those of
352 the state.
Women are integral to the modern nation-building initiatives of the state
of Qatar not only because their participation in higher education and the work-
force is necessary to fulfill economic and human development aims but also because
their perceived and actual roles in society remain a central aspect of the state’s
construction of an envisioned nation to present to Qatar and the world. The state is
sending mixed messages to its female Qatari citizens by engaging in strategies of
national development that require women to participate in higher education and
the workforce in ways that will inevitably violate social norms, while engaging in the
preservation of the same social norms to foster the perception that the nation is
retaining its cultural authenticity. Gender norms, patriarchal structures, and sym-
bolic representations of women are exploited by those seeking to exert power in
society. Women’s labor in the workforce, their roles in the family and the domestic
sphere, their visibility in the public sphere —these are all building blocks of the
state’s envisioned nation. However, while the state attempts to present itself in the
best possible light to the international community without upsetting the nation’s
cultural and social foundation, Qatari women are making choices about how to
operate within a changing social context.

Methodology
To illuminate Qatari women’s perspectives on gender roles, modernization, and
tradition, I conducted interviews with fifteen women in the summer of 2017 while
I was a visiting scholar at Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center. My research is
qualitative, and it is not intended to offer sociological trends or provide quantitative
data on Qatari women. Instead, its purpose is to illustrate the views and decisions of
a few Qatari women as they engage with sociopolitical processes, state discourses,

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

and cultural and religious context. Because my research relied on interviews, I did
not have the opportunity to reflect on the disjuncture between discourse and prac-
tice, which raises interesting questions for future ethnographic research on women
in Qatar. The women in my case study are all Sunni Muslims born and raised in
Qatar. Their ages range from twenty-six to fifty-six, and their levels of education
vary. I conducted interviews in English and Arabic, with four primarily in Arabic
and eleven primarily in English. Translators assisted with the interviews conducted
primarily in Arabic. Interviews were conducted individually, with the exception of
those of Buthayna and Hend Al-Khater, sisters who asked me to interview them
together at Buthayna’s home. I asked my interviewees a range of open-ended ques-
tions about modernization in Qatar, Qatari culture, gender roles, religion, and poli-
tics and allowed the interviews to be shaped by what the women were most inter-
ested in discussing. My research approach was influenced heavily by Bruno Latour’s
(2007) “actor-network-theory,” which encourages social science scholars to “follow
the actor” rather than impose a social order and specific language on research sub-
jects a priori. 353

Since I am a Western woman who is not a native Arabic speaker, the potential
impact of my positionality on the participants’ representations warrants recogni-
tion. I found it difficult initially to meet Qatari women who were willing to speak to
me and was often met with a series of questions about my research before I could
proceed. My affiliation with Qatar University as a visiting scholar seemed to confer
 a level of validity on my research in the eyes of several participants, and I found that
leading with this information allowed me to bypass questions about my motives. I
also realized that the participants’ representations of their roles in Qatari society to
some extent reflected a desire to counter how they imagined a Western audience to
perceive them.
Following the wishes of participants, I do not always use the full names or
exact ages of the women in the case study.2 Education level is also not always included.
The main reason for this variation is that I sometimes could not obtain accurate
information. Some Qataris are granted advanced degrees without actually attend-
ing university, and these are conferred on the basis of social status (which often goes
hand in hand with tribal affiliation) (cooke 2014). However, with the exception of
three participants, the women in my study had obtained undergraduate degrees.
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

Interestingly, my findings revealed no significant differences based on educational

level. It should also be noted that many women in my study possess the same family
names. This does not imply that they are directly related as defined by Western
conventions but is the result of Qatari families choosing to maintain tribal family
names and affiliations.
All the interviewees were women of high socioeconomic status, which is not
unusual, considering that most Qatari citizens are wealthy. Thus, while my sampling
is representative of a privileged segment of the population, the women I interviewed
are average in terms of socioeconomic status. The tribal affiliation of my partici-
pants differed; however, I chose not to broach this topic due to its sensitive nature
and the fact that my relationships with participants were not close enough that it
felt appropriate. Tribal status can significantly impact the social status and oppor-
tunities available to women in the Gulf states, and further scholarship is needed on
this topic. Finally, further research on younger Qatari women is needed to shed
light on the generational differences in Qatari women’s views.

Qatari Women’s Views on Gender Roles

The data collected from my interviews provides insight into the way Qatari women
view concepts related to gender roles and the status of women in modern Qatari
society. On arriving in Qatar, I had few Qatari contacts and was warned by American
expatriate friends that Qatari women were hard to find. However, I found myself
interviewing Qatari women during my first week as a visiting scholar at Qatar
University. My first interviewee was an administrative assistant at the university
354 to whom I was referred by the associate dean of graduate and research studies, and
she relayed my requests for more interviews to other women working at the university.
More women rejected my requests for interviews than accepted them, yet I did not
find Qatari women as inaccessible as my expatriate friends had imagined I would.
I believe that my status as a visiting scholar at the university and the assistance
of a Qatari woman with established connections to the university significantly
increased my access to the community of women there.
I met most of my other interviewees through an American elementary school
teacher at Vision International School who had many Qatari students in her classes.
She contacted the students’ parents on my behalf, and I received my first invitation
to a Qatari home from the wife of the elementary school’s owner. She asked me a
series of questions through a translator about my motives, my institutional affilia-
tion, and what I planned to write. Once she realized that I was affiliated with Qatar
University, she told me that she would answer my questions. It was only after I had
met with this woman that invitations from other parents flooded in, leading me
to believe that her approval as a woman of high social standing in her community
had influenced the decisions of other parents to accept my requests for interviews.
Meeting in the women’s homes, I found myself eating and sipping tea in between
taking notes and being introduced to family members, who agreed to meet me for
interviews on future occasions. Once I gained access to a tight-knit community
of Qatari women, I found that communal and familial ties allowed my research to
succeed.
When I asked the participants in my study about gender roles in Qatar, the
women’s initial reactions often reflected a desire to dispel common Western tropes
and stereotypes about Muslim women, which likely stemmed at least partly from

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

the valid concern that I, as a Western woman, would misrepresent their stories to a
Western audience. Amina Al-Ansari, a professor of Islamic culture at Qatar Uni-
versity, told me that she was afraid to discuss the topic of women’s rights with me
because she believed that Americans had the wrong idea about women’s rights in
the Middle East.3 Buthayna Al-Khater, a stay-at-home mother in her forties, was
quick to respond to my questions about the status of women in Qatar: “We don’t
want to be like the West. We don’t want to live like women in the West. Women like
their lives and are proud of their lives here. Respect the differences, and know that
this life wasn’t forced on us. We are not victims.”4 All the interviewees expressed
a level of satisfaction and desire to maintain current non-Western gender para-
digms, which they related to the roles of men and women in the family. During my
visit with Buthayna and Hend, they each made comparisons between gender roles
in Qatar and the West, citing Qatari men’s religious obligation to financially provide
for their wives and daughters as a benefit of Qatari gender paradigms.5
The view that women in Qatar receive gender-specific benefits from the
financial provision of the men in their families was universal among the women I 355

interviewed, and all fifteen women shared the belief that men are bound to finan-
cially care for their wives and daughters in accordance with the teachings of Islam.
Two women mentioned this obligation as justification for Qatari inheritance prac-
tices, which are derived from interpretations of the Qurʾan and give men a greater
 share in inheritances (Nasir 2009: 105). Fatima M., an unmarried twenty-seven-
year-old who works for the organization Education Above All, said that men have
more responsibilities than women in Islam.6 Fatima Al-Muftah, a forty-two-year-
old woman who acquired her bachelor’s degree from Qatar University, married at
twenty-three and now has three children. She worked as a teacher during the first
four years of her marriage but then decided to stop working and stay at home. She
said: “Women are like queens in Qatar. The men should take care of the women.
The woman should relax. The man should work.”7
When asked about the duties of men and women in Islam, the women pre-
sented a clear picture of men’s financial responsibilities, but their responses con-
cerning women’s duties were less distinct. Several women had to stop and think
about the question of women’s religious obligations and roles, which they appeared
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

to reflect on less often. Yet most of the women offered the same conclusion in their
conversations with me: taking care of the house and children is a religious duty
for women, according to Islam. However, what they said about women’s roles in the
home expressed a common theme: most of them took women’s domestic respon-
sibilities for granted and viewed the care of children as the responsibility of all
married women with children, regardless of religious affiliation. Thus they did not
necessarily appeal to religion to justify domestic responsibilities but did consider
women’s obligation to care for the house and children to be consistent with Islamic
principles. Married and unmarried participants alike shared this view, although
they sometimes expressed differing views on whether or not marriage should be
prioritized over other aspects of a woman’s life.
Furthermore, several women appealed to the “natural” differences between
men and women as the rationale for preserving traditional gender roles. One woman
viewed taking care of children as a religious duty for women. However, when I asked
Hend whether that was so, she replied, “Yeah, but that’s just natural. Everyone does
that.” Fatima Al-Muftah described caring for children as the “best job” and portrayed
her decision to quit her teaching job to care for her children as a natural choice.
Fatima M., who is unmarried, said in reference to women’s domestic responsibili-
ties: “Women in general, because of their nature, tend to be more attentive to house-
work and to kids in general. So I think it’s just nature.” Many women described
differences in men’s and women’s roles as natural and positive, and none expressed
discontent with Qatari gender roles. Their views reflected a complementarian view
of gender, in which men and women naturally take on different roles that com-
356 plement one another. Fatima M., discussing the struggle and pressure women face
to balance work and family, said that women have to choose which to prioritize (see
also Golkowska 2017: 6 of PDF; Mitchell et al. 2014: 7). However, she also felt that
the roles and responsibilities of men and women should not be identical and stated
that both have their own pressures and expectations.
Several women described the positive aspects of a traditional gender para-
digm and the negative changes that would result from shifting toward a Western
paradigm. Buthayna Al-Khater compared her perceptions of the role of family in
the lives of Qatari and American women: “Girls in America have to be independent,
work for themselves to provide for themselves. It’s not like that here. . . . The fam-
ilies support them and care for them.” Fatima M. also described the negative aspects
that come with expectations of financial independence: “When you ask for com-
plete independence, you have to endure whatever comes with it. And there’s a lot
of hardship that comes with it.”
Nonetheless, the idea that women must make a choice between their families
or their careers was common. This seemed to be a practical conclusion more than
anything, as the women recognized the difficulties associated with balancing fam-
ily and career. An interesting aspect of their understandings of gender roles was
that several framed domestic responsibilities as contingent on marital status. In
other words, they viewed singleness as a means of exemption to these responsibil-
ities, rather than viewing marriage and childbearing as essential roles for women to
pursue. Instead of questioning established gender roles, unmarried participants
questioned whether or not they wanted to get married and prioritize marriage and
child-rearing over their careers in accordance with established gender roles. Two
unmarried participants even portrayed marriage as a hindrance to pursuing their
career goals and offered this as one reason they were not married. Interestingly,
none of the women over thirty-five viewed marriage as a hindrance to career goals,

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

which perhaps reflects that dominant social and religious norms in Qatar have
shifted from valorizing women’s roles in the home above all else to valorizing both
domestic responsibilities and labor force participation for women.
Sheikha J. is a twenty-seven-year-old with bachelor’s and master’s degrees
from Qatar University who works there as an academic adviser. She described the
recent increases in Qatari women’s higher education and workforce participation:
“Qatari ladies have started to think more about their career and educational life
instead of their family life. For example, some of the ladies prefer the career over
[being] married and [having] kids.”8 Sheikha J. views marriage as a choice that
would hinder her career: “Sometimes I say, ‘I have a job and future plans. Why
should I marry?’ I don’t want to say that marriage erase[s] the dreams, but some-
times with the family commitment you can’t do it” (see also James-Hawkins,
Qutteina, and Yount 2017: 162). Moza M., an unmarried thirty-year-old woman
with a bachelor’s degree from Qatar University who also works there as an academic
counselor, referred to her education and career goals as her main priority.9 She is
working on her master’s degree in public health at Qatar University and plans to 357

pursue a doctoral degree. She said, “Now my concentration is on my studies, . . . and

I have this new goal to be an academic. This is my priority.”
Aldana, a twenty-nine-year-old academic counselor at Qatar University with
a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s degree in politics from that university,
is married with one child. She completed her master’s after she was married. She
 hopes to start her own business in the future and stated that she and her hus-
band agree on “several things about work, education, and continuing education.”10
Thus she views her marriage and domestic responsibilities not as hindrances to her
educational or career goals but as aspects of her life that require balancing. Hamda
Al-Khater, who is twenty-six years old and unmarried, did not describe domestic
responsibilities as conflicting with educational or career opportunities, either, but
she emphasized her belief that marriage and childbearing are important goals for
women.11 Hamda is not working but is attending secondary school, which she did
not complete when she was younger. She used the Arabic word lzm (pronounced
“lah-zem”), which translates as “must” or “it is necessary,” to describe the importance
of women having kids, and said, “Life will change for the better.”
Of course, for Qatari women who delay marriage, prioritizing educational and
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

career goals is not always the reason or the only reason. The education gap between
men and women, and the existence of marriage customs and tribal affiliations, can
make it difficult for women to find men whom they or their families consider suit-
able matches (Mitchell et al. 2014: 7). Amal summed up her own sentiments about
why she is not married. Referencing the education gap between men and women,
she stated bluntly, “Men can’t keep up.” However, unmarried Qatari women con-
tinue to live in their fathers’ houses until marriage and often accede to their fami-
lies’ wishes when making decisions. For example, Amal attended Qatar University
because her parents did not approve of Education City. She has a driver to provide
her with transportation because her parents did not approve of her obtaining a
driver’s license. She wears a niqab (a face covering with slits for the eyes) to work
because her brothers disapproved of seeing her arrive at home with her face uncov-
ered, and her parents agreed that she should start wearing a niqab to work. Such
compromises are not unique to Amal but are the inevitable result of Qatari women
making decisions within their existing sociocultural structures.
A number of significant trends emerged among the women interviewed.
First, they expressed satisfaction with and a desire to maintain established gender
paradigms related to men’s and women’s roles in the family and considered these
roles beneficial to women to at least some extent. Second, they held the view that
men have a religious obligation to provide financially for the women in their fami-
lies, whereas women have an obligation to act as the primary caretakers of their
children. They rationalized their views by appealing to both Islamic values and the
economic benefits afforded them by traditional family values and roles. In regard
358 to the relationship between career and educational opportunities and domestic
responsibilities, the women’s views were varied, and their personal choices reflected
differing priorities. While all the women wished to maintain established gender
roles, they expressed differing views on how to navigate career and educational
opportunities alongside cultural, religious, and social norms.
Qatari Women’s Views on Modern Development and Tradition
This section explores the views of Qatari women on modernity and tradition and
the ways in which these views reflect and resist the state’s. The interviews I con-
ducted yielded somewhat paradoxical findings. The women’s comments parroted
state discourses on several counts, including the state’s emphasis on the positive
aspects of modernization and the importance of preserving tradition, and they
expressed nearly unequivocal support for the current government. Yet their remarks
also reflected concern about the loss of traditional values and the imposition of
Westernization resulting from initiatives directly or tacitly supported by the current
government.
The complexity of the term modernity is well appreciated in social science
scholarship, and it is important to take into account that Qatari women’s discus-
sion of “modernity” carries ideological baggage. The interpretation of modernity
promoted by the Qatari state reflects its objectives of increasing political standing
and participation in global capitalist systems while maintaining a distinct Qatari
identity, and thus state discourses simultaneously align with and resist hegemonic
Western conceptualizations of modernity. When Qatari women discuss moder-
nity, they may be aware of the already complex state-sponsored interpretation of
the term, but this is not to say that they interpret “modernity” as the state does. Nor
should the impact of popular conceptualizations of “modernity” on their interpre-

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

tations of modernity, and vice versa, be minimized.12 Another important factor to
consider is the high socioeconomic status of the women in my study and the fact that
the nation’s recent increases in oil wealth and distribution of welfare benefits have
benefited them directly. The economic benefits that the state provides to its citizenry
certainly have an impact on the state’s relationship to its citizens, and the women’s
positive representations of the state should not be understood outside this context.13
The topic of modernization in Qatar was welcomed by the women I inter-
viewed, as they eagerly discussed how the nation has improved since the discovery
of oil. They referenced massive construction projects, new buildings, advances in
technology, and increased educational opportunities for men and women as posi-
tive aspects of modernization. A common perception among the women was that
the discovery of oil had made life in Qatar significantly easier. The only timeline
mentioned in their discussion of Qatari history was that of pre-oil and post-oil. Prior
to the discovery of oil, Qatar was a largely impoverished nation with fishing and
pearl diving as its main industries. The discovery of oil in 1939 led to significant
increases in wealth and development, and the discovery of natural gas in the 1970s 359

facilitated Qatar’s rise to become the richest state per capita in the world. Petroleum
and natural gas are now Qatar’s main sources of revenue, and the state has the third-
largest natural gas reserves in the world. My questions to the women about mod-
ernization were almost always followed by mention of oil and the way it had changed
and improved the standard of living in Qatar, along with references to the perils
of the pearl-diving period.14
 Hamda Al-Khater stated, “In my mom’s day, it was different, before petrol. . . .
Life is easier now—better now.” Noof Al-Khater, a forty-year-old mother and law-
yer, said, “Before petrol, life was dangerous, difficult. . . . People left and went to other
countries. It was very hard.”15 All the interviewees regarded modern development as
largely beneficial and positive for the nation. Several women referenced education
as a positive aspect of modernization, and all the women viewed higher education
as an important and necessary pursuit for young women. Some of the women in
their forties and fifties who are not educated are strongly encouraging their daugh-
ters to pursue higher education (see also James-Hawkins, Qutteina, and Yount 2017:
160). The emphasis on education and other positive aspects of modern development
in the women’s comments strongly reflected government discourses used to justify
recent developmental and educational initiatives (160). The women’s thoughts sur-
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

rounding tradition also reflected state discourses used to justify initiatives related to
the construction of a national heritage industry. The women shared a nostalgic view
of certain aspects of Qatari history, and all the women’s responses emphasized the
significance of revitalizing and preserving “authentic” Qatari tradition and culture.
Latifa Al-Muftah said, “Keeping our morals and values is important. For a while,
we lost our tradition. They forgot and lost our culture. Now we are returning to it.”16
However, while state-sponsored traditions may impact the way Qatari women view
tradition, social conceptualizations of tradition may also impact the construction
of traditions by the Qatari state. It is important to take into account the existence
of multiple conceptualizations of tradition in Qatari society, which are produced
through dynamic interplay between a variety of social, religious, and political fac-
tors and which continue to interact in complex ways.
The state of Qatar has attempted to brand itself as both modern and tra-
ditional, and state branding has played a significant role in Qatar’s domestic and
foreign policy agendas. The Gulf states have seen an increase in state-branding
initiatives in recent years, with each state working to create a unique national brand
palatable and appealing to the international community (cooke 2014: 64–76). As
miriam cooke (2014: 30–35) has shown, the drawing of national boundaries in the
late twentieth century conflicted with tribal boundaries and created something of
a regional identity crisis, as members of tribes were expected to become national
citizens of one nation and national citizenship became a determinant of economic
and political rights, as well as the distribution of oil wealth. Each of the Gulf states
constructed national brands both to gain international power and influence and to
360 maintain social stability and rule. National “traditions” were brought into the public
spotlight, though these were often recently constructed, along with narratives of
the nations’ respective pasts.
The construction of a heritage industry in Qatar is an important aspect of
state-branding efforts aimed at preserving a national identity. The nation’s heritage
industry consists of both governmental institutions and private institutions that
openly support governmental agendas and aim to contribute to the goals found in
the state’s national vision. The industry strategically promotes a nostalgic view of
Qatari history, the importance of preserving or revitalizing tradition and the fear
of losing it. The heritage industry comprises a variety of institutions and initiatives,
including national museums, private museums, souqs with traditional architecture,
camel races, dhow races, and a falconry center. The emergence of a heritage industry
is a modern phenomenon, though it often markets its constructions as “historical
traditions.”
A common narrative about the loss of tradition in Qatar was expressed by
most of the Qatari women I interviewed, and they often echoed one another’s
responses, sometimes word for word. The narrative was characterized by certain
common elements. These were strong identifications with the struggles and eco-
nomic hardships of their ancestors (and sometimes living grandparents) in the
pearl-diving period; the idea that the discovery of oil made life easier and improved
the standard of living for Qatari citizens; and a nostalgic view of an idealized time
period before modernization was fully realized in the nation. Participants described
the idealized time period as a peaceful time when “everyone knew everyone” and
people’s doors remained (literally) open to one another.
The following few examples of the women’s references to this time period are
eerily similar to one another and reflect nostalgia and longing for a lost age in Qatar:

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

Fatima: “Everyone had the same values, were very tight, were very close.
People used to go into each other’s houses without even knocking.”

Fatima Al-Muftah: “[Qatar] used to be open. My grandfather would leave the

door open. Everyone knew everyone. Now . . . not so much.”

Noof Al-Khater: “Everyone had the doors open. Every morning [they] met
outside and went to breakfast together and went to each other’s houses each
morning.”

Buthayna Al-Khater: “[Qatar] used to be so open. Everyone knew everyone.”

While all the women shared a nostalgic view of an idealized Qatari past and agreed
that the preservation of tradition and culture is important, they expressed differing
views on which aspects of Qatari culture should be preserved and the nature of
the relationship between modern development and tradition. In other words, their
361
views and desires related to the trajectory of Qatar’s future were varied and unique.
Different women wanted different things in their personal futures, and they were
all deeply aware that modern development in Qatari society would continue to have
a significant impact on their lives. Some women expressed resistance to certain
aspects of modern development in Qatar that other women were eager to embrace.
 The women also disagreed on the extent to which the nation is in danger of losing
its traditions and certain aspects of its culture.
Before delving into the women’s specific concerns about modern develop-
ment and tradition in Qatar, it is worth exploring how the women defined “tradi-
tion.” An enlightening aspect of the women’s discussion of tradition was that several
were quick to call it important but slow to articulate what Qatari traditions actually
are. That the state has recently constructed Qatari traditions may be a contributing
factor to the lack of clarity in the women’s comments surrounding tradition. Fur-
thermore, the lack of clarity may also indicate that these women do not necessarily
identify with the traditions constructed by the state. Some of the traditions pro-
moted by the heritage industry in Qatar, such as bird hunting, camel racing, and
boat racing, were mentioned by only one or two women. Examples of Qatari tra-
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

ditions mentioned by more women included the Arabic language, traditional dress,
Qatari food, family values (i.e., respecting elders), and religious holidays. The tra-
ditions that were most important to the women were not necessarily those promoted
by the state but those that defined their cultural context and their daily lives. These
women were concerned that basic aspects of their lives—that is, food, language,
dress, familial relationships, religious holidays — were in danger of being lost in
the wake of modern development in Qatar. The state’s assurances that the nation is
preserving its traditions is an aspect of state discourse that the women did not fully
accept, as they all expressed some concern that the nation is at risk of losing its
authentic cultural identity. With the native Qatari population at about 12 percent
and the ever-increasing influence of Western institutions in Qatari society, it can be
argued that these women have valid cause for concern. That certain state-sponsored
traditions (i.e., falconry, camel racing, boat racing) are represented as highly mas-
culinized pursuits is another likely reason that they do not resonate with Qatari
women.
The idea that Qataris could lose their way of life by adopting Western values
and behaviors was expressed by several women, who view the loss of tradition
in Qatar as a generational problem. Sheikha J., twenty-seven, said: “The younger
generation nowadays are trying to have . . . like . . . foreign personalities. You know
what I mean.” Fatima Al-Muftah, forty-two, said of the younger generations, “They
don’t like their own country.” In addition, several women mentioned the loss of the
Arabic language as a problem facing Qatari society and one that cannot be divorced
from the controversies surrounding Education City and Western education in
362 Qatar. Many Qatari children attend schools that use English as the primary lan-
guage of instruction and graduate from high school with stronger academic English
skills than formal Arabic skills. Sheikha J., who works at Qatar University, discussed
her concern that Qatari children are no longer learning Arabic at home, either, and
her own struggle to write in formal Arabic in emails to her colleagues.
Gender segregation in the educational and public sectors is another source of
controversy in Qatari society, and several women viewed gender segregation in the
educational sphere as an important aspect of Qatari culture to preserve. Most of
the women agreed that schools should be gender segregated at least through high
school, but they were divided on whether or not there should be gender segrega-
tion at the university level. Hend Al-Khater expressed the concern that Americans
are trying to impose their own gender norms on Qatar’s educational sector: “Both
[gender segregation and gender mixing] have their problems. In America, there is
sexual harassment because it’s mixed, and they are dealing with those problems.”
Hamda Al-Khater said that a lack of gender segregation is often viewed negatively
in Qatari society. Hamda’s sister, who is unmarried and has worked as a bank super-
visor for seven years, has faced resistance from the Qatari community for working
in a gender-mixed environment. On the other hand, Aldana, who attended Qatar
University and now works there, views gender mixing at the university level as an
inevitable reality of modern development: “In education, I don’t think it should be
conservative. The government didn’t support mixing before university, and society
should follow. [But there is] no bad reputation of mixed universities. For people
here, it’s a kind of prestige . . . because it’s international and very well known.”
While the women’s views were marked by variation in relation to which aspects
of Qatari culture should be preserved, and whether or not, or which, aspects of
modernization are negatively impacting Qatari society, there were common themes
among the women’s comments. These included elevation of the positive aspects of

LILOIA • Gender and Nation Building in Qatar

modernization and the importance of preserving tradition, as well as resistance to a
loss of Qatari culture resulting from Westernization and modern development. It is
hard to ignore the women’s expression of dissatisfaction with the impact of modern
development on their nation. Yet an interesting aspect of the women’s remarks
about modern development and the preservation of tradition was the nearly unequiv-
ocal support for state agendas related to both. While a loss of tradition was a con-
cern for the women, this did not translate into a lack of support for the state’s
developmental initiatives. On the contrary, they attributed any negative impacts
of modern development to external sources and expressed great pride in their
national identity.

Conclusion
As modern Qatari women experience social, political, and religious pressures and
expectations, they respond in varied ways to the new opportunities available to them
and to the changes that modern development has brought to their society. Qatari
women are skillfully negotiating the expectations imposed on them and therefore 363

responding to social transformation and engaging with state policies. My analysis

provides insight into Qatari women’s desires to maintain established gender para-
digms, desires that stem at least partly from the financial benefits these paradigms
afford women. The research develops a new analysis of the nostalgic views Qatari
women hold of their nation’s past and helps explain their resistance to a loss of
 cultural identity, both of which, I argue, reflect a level of dissatisfaction with the
impact of modern development on their nation. Finally, my analysis highlights the
variety of Qatari women’s choices as they navigate the tensions between increased
educational and career opportunities and domestic pressures, which include, for
instance, resisting social norms to prioritize careers and prioritizing domestic
responsibilities in spite of increased expectation to participate in the workforce.
Further research is needed on Qatari women’s conceptualizations of authentic tra-
dition and cultural identity, and their contribution to constructions of modernity
and tradition in the nation, as well as on potential generational differences in Qatari
women’s views.
The demands of the Qatari state’s envisioned nation—one that is both modern
and traditional—are falling largely on the shoulders of Qatari women. As these
JMEWS • Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies • 15:3 November 2019

women impact and respond to the expectations of the state alongside those of their
social and religious contexts, they are shaping the future of their nation. Qatari
women skillfully and strategically make decisions that allow them to reap benefits
from both “traditional” and “modern” paradigms in a nation that does not draw a
line between the two, but in which the traditional is modern. These women do not
believe that modernization necessitates a loss of tradition, nor do they feel that it
should imply a trajectory leading to the adoption of Western gender paradigms
and values. Rather, these women express a desire to maintain an authentic cultural
identity in a modern context. They desire to take advantage of the benefits of modern
development while maintaining the established gender paradigms they consider
advantageous and the social and cultural values and traditions of importance to
them. Their words speak for themselves, telling a story of skillful navigation of the
pressures of modernization and the persistence of tradition.

ALAINNA LILOIA is a PhD student in Middle Eastern and North African studies at the
University of Arizona. Her research is focused on gender, modernity, and national identity
in the Arab Gulf states. Contact: aliloia@email.arizona.edu.

Acknowledgments
My research was conducted as a visiting research scholar at Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center. The
funds for my research project were provided by the Paul K. and Elizabeth Cook Richter Memorial Fund
and the Wake Forest University Department for the Study of Religions.
364

Notes
1. Amal Al-Shammari, interview by author, Qatar, May 6, 2017. Because I interviewed each woman
who contributed to my research only once, I cite each interview at its first mention, where
clarification is necessary, or where there is a significant interval in the text between mentions.
2. When initials are used in the place of last names, they are identifiers rather than actual initials.
3. Amina Al-Ansari, interview by author, Qatar, May 15, 2017.
4. Buthayna Al-Khater, interview by author, Qatar, May 17, 2017.
5. Hend Al-Khater, interview by author, Qatar, May 17, 2017.
6. Fatima M., interview by author, Qatar, May 29, 2017.
7. Fatima Al-Muftah, interview by author, Qatar, May 21, 2017.
8. Sheikha J., interview by author, Qatar, May 23, 2017.
9. Moza M., interview by author, Qatar, May 10, 2017.
10. Aldana, interview by author, Qatar, May 21, 2017.
11. Hamda Al-Khater, interview by author, Qatar, May 12, 2017.
12. For a discussion of popular interpretations of modernity among communities of women in the
Middle East, see Deeb 2006.
13. For more about the Qatari state’s relationship to social actors, see Mehran Kamrava’s (2015: 141)
explanation of “embedded autonomy.”
14. The women generally defined Qatar’s “pearl-diving period” loosely and applied it both to the time
prior to the discovery of oil in 1939 and to periods of time years or decades after the discovery of
oil. This is likely because increases in wealth and development occurred gradually in Qatar and
pearl diving remained a major industry for a significant period of time after oil was discovered.
15. Noof Al-Khater, interview by author, Qatar, May 28, 2017.
16. Latifa Al-Muftah, interview by author, Qatar, May 9, 2017.

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