Kuwaiti women still not allowed to vote
A Bill that would grant the women a right to vote has been put on hold for another 2 weeks. Apparently the "conservative" Kuwaitis are not comfortable yet with the idea of women voting, something they seem to share with their Saudi brothers. To check out Saudi's reasons for not allowing women to vote, check out this top 10 list courtsey of Nadz. Okay Gulf countries, when are you gonna start acting right and give women equal rights? Most of them probably won't vote anyway, so why does it bother you so much? I mean, you marry them, they raised you and they take care of your households, if they can do all that, how come they can't stuff a ballot in a box? What exactly are you people afraid of? Seriously, i just wanna know!
posted by The Sandmonkey @ 5/04/2005 02:32:00 AM
5 Comments:
"Most of them probably won't vote anyway." I beg to differ. And I think this is exactly what Kuwaiti men are afraid of. It's not that they think women are incapable of voting; it's because women are very capable of voting (and probably block voting) that these men are terrified.
In my experience, the oppression of women is not a sign of underestimation.
You ask: "What exactly are [these] people afraid of?"
Answer: Women.
Sally,
My point was to compare Kuwait to a country where women are allowed to vote, like egypt. Only a small percentage of egyptian women actually bother to go to the polls when there is a parlimentary elections or something of that nature. And it's not just egyptian women really, even the healthiest of democracies have low female voter turnout, at least compared to men. Not to mention, the men who do not want women to vote seem to believe that women will unite behind certain agendas and force them on the society, which isn't always the case. Look at the iraqi women elected to the parliament, some of them are opposing more women's rights. Unfortunately in our kind of society, women are sometimes the biggest opressors of women. I wish it wasn't the case, but it is.
But i think you are right, that what they really fear is women, or rather the kind of justice those women would demand of them for the wrongs that were done to them. I don't think it's about underestimation or overestimation. It's about control: Men have it, men are afraid to lose it, cause they know that they have been wrong in denying women their rights for this long and they fear that a reckoning will come once women get them.
SM I like this 'recknoning' thingy lol. That was a good post .
in the kuwaiti case, you would definitely expect a high female voter turnout since it's their first opportunity to vote. and this is why the decision has been postponed, as the jazeera article states, so that they at the very least cannot vote in the upcoming elections. if it turns out that the decision is in their favor, the fervor of the voting will have to wait until the next election. this means a few less women than those who would have voted in this election because the topic would be a little less "hot."
and sally does make a good point of men being terrified of women. i'm one of them!
mahdi
good post, sandmonkey. you inspired me to discuss the issue in greater detail over at my blog.
as for what they fear - it's change, i think, particularly the fear of losing control over women.
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