Dr Souad Ali discusses Kuwaiti women in leadership positions
KUWAIT CITY, June 29: The American University of Kuwait (AUK) held a lecture by Dr Souad Ali, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Arizona State University and Visiting Professor at AUK, to discuss the subject of her book-in-progress “Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Positions.” The lecture discussed the advances made in women’s issues in Kuwait over the last sixty years and the findings of the research conducted by Dr Souad for the book, which features interviews with leaders such as Founder and Chair of AUK Sheikha Dana Nasser Al-Sabah, Former Parliament Members Dr Rula Dashti and Dr Aseel Al-Awadhi, CEO of Kuwait Energy Engineer Sara Akbar; Sheikha Hussah Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, Director General of Dar al-Athar alIslamiyyah, former Parliament member Ms Safa Al-Hashem, among many other Kuwaiti women in leadership positions. The lecture was open to members of the AUK community and the public.
Advances
The lecture emphasized that, although the advances made in women’s issues in the State of Kuwait through the years have been widely commented upon, limited academic research has been published on their material effects. Dr Souad explained that Kuwaiti women received both the right to vote and to run in elections to Parliament in 2005—the first women in the conservative Arab Gulf bloc to do so. “In an unprecedented move in the region, the first four Kuwaiti women were elected to the Parliament in 2009. Simultaneously, the critique of Muslim women scholars and feminists is creating new spaces in Islamic theology,” she said.
The works of these scholars have
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Acclaimed
Dr Souad T. Ali is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies
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Dr Ali received an M.A. in English (American and AfricanAmerican Literature) from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Utah (2004). She is the author of two books: A Religion, Not a State: Ali ‘Abd alRaziq’s Islamic Justification of Political Secularism (U of Utah Press, 2009), and The Road to the Two Sudan(s), an edited Volume of which she is the lead author (Cambridge Scholars 2014). Her other books in progress include, Kuwaiti Women in Leadership Positions; Modern Perspectives on Gender Issues in Islam; and a
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