Performing Gender Equality

In this book manuscript, I argue most Arab governments instrumentalize women’s rights to show the West their adoption of gender-equality norms. I study the link between gender and authoritarianism in Arab countries, then engage with the state-feminism literature to explain these gender-equality policies. The key instrument used is gender quotas. I show how Western norms of women’s rights have been diffused, adopted, and adapted in Arab countries, and argue these norms have led Arab political leaders to adopt a performative governance. This is a cynical performance that aims to burnish the leader’s modernizing credentials in the West. In states with diffuse leadership spread among several centers of power, the Arab form of state feminism is not implemented. The book analyzes the speeches of presidents and kings, and their implementation of policies and reforms. It integrates new information on current policies and the status of women’s rights in the region drawn from recent scholarship, analyses of policies, laws, and UN reports, and completed interviews with professionals in international organizations.