This book examines the role of Gulf (Khaliji) women in the public sphere, bringing an intersectional lens into the way women negotiate opportunities and barriers related to their current roles and their methods of integration into local affairs (political, economic, social, religious), surfacing the nuanced experiences of women in the Arab Gulf States. Bringing together multi-disciplinary researchers from higher education, gender studies, comparative politics, cultural Gulf studies and beyond, it facilitates a conversation across a wide range of paradigms. This is a timely publication given the recent and rapid changes in economic statecraft and the regional challenges that warrant women’s inclusion in national affairs.

This book will appeal to academics and researchers interested in women and gender in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and particularly those interested in the status of Khaliji women in politics and policymaking, the economy, science, the arts, and academia.

Bader Mousa Al-Saif is an Assistant Professor of History at Kuwait University, Founding President of Al-Saif Consulting, and a Fellow at Chatham House and the Arab Gulf States Institute. Al-Saif has over two decades of experience researching and working in the Arab Gulf states and has published widely on the modern and contemporary Middle East and Islamic thought.

Sumaiya Al-Wahaibi is a Post-Doctoral Researcher on Women's Mobilization of the Law in the Gulf at the University of Copenhagen. She was previously affiliated with New York University Abu Dhabi and Sohar University, and has worked with several UN agencies. She holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Otago, and her scholarly publications focus on Khaliji state–society relations and gendered politics in the GCC.

Hanaa Almoaibed is a Research Fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Hanaa has advised the government, private sector, and nonprofits in the Gulf for over two decades, with publications on education and skills, youth, and women in the region.