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Vânia Carvalho Pinto

Political Science
University of Hildesheim

Nation-Building, State and the Genderframing of Women's Rights in the United Arab Emirates (1971-2009)

Vânia Carvalho Pinto studied International Relations at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), and concluded her MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Exeter (UK). She is a PhD candidate at the University of Hildesheim where she is a scholarship holder of the Graduate School “Interculturality, Education and Aesthetics”. She was invited into the Humanismus-Project in 2006 for a three-months research stay and has since remained affiliated to their activities as an associate member.

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Dissertation

Nation-Building, State and the Genderframing of Women's Rights in the United Arab Emirates (1971-2009)

The extensive changes to Emirati women’s traditional rights and roles have been one of the most visible transformations taking place in the UAE throughout its almost forty years of modern history. This dissertation offers an interpretation of why and how these modifications came about. Its aim is to analyse the promotion of educational, employment and political rights for women as strategic state actions set within a context of broader nation-building goals.
The perspective adopted in this research is that there is no direct or easy link between the state’s ‘offer of rights’ for women, and society’s acceptance of them. This is particularly so when proposed changes raise deep issues about honour and respectability, and are quite removed from dominant gender norms and accepted traditions. Given these circumstances, the mechanisms that induce women to actually take advantage of what is offered have not been given sufficient attention. The concept of ‘Genderframe’ aims precisely at defining that ‘connecting mechanism,’ and explaining the successes and failures of these policies both mobilization and implementation-wise.
Elaborating on the sociological method of examination known as ‘framing’, the term ‘genderframing’ refers to a dynamic and interactive process between the state and its population which entails the symbolic rework of meanings associated to women-related policies, and its subsequent presentation in novel ways. It is argued that such re-interpretation has been purposefully conducted by the Emirati State in order to portray the changing roles of women as necessary and desirable, for reasons associated to nation-building purposes, religious conformity, promotion of family values, and efforts at indigenous cultural preservation.
By examining the creation, deployment and modifications to the Emirati Genderframe, this text highlights the profound intertwining between gender, nation building, and domestic socio-political dynamics in a country that, while seeking to establish its modernizing credentials, is still struggling for self-definition and empowerment.
The work is based on the analysis of secondary literature as well as primary data such as official publications, booklets from the UAE women’s associations, and online newspaper articles. In addition, it makes use of a unique data collection, obtained during an extended research stay in the UAE from 2007 to 2008, which includes informal conversations, the author’s personal observations, as well as extensive interviews with about eighty Emiratis, the majority of those female, who have been engaged in women-related issues.