Kuwaiti women have finally been given the right to vote and run for office. The Kuwaiti prime minister said women could serve as ministers in the country’s 15-member Cabinet. Following Oman, Bahrain and Qatar, Kuwait has given its women political rights — though of course with much opposition from conservatives.

On websites, debate took place between those who hailed Kuwait’s step as a movement toward democracy and those who thought the country was bowing to American pressure and embracing un-Islamic practices. Saudi readers had their share of comments, some of them, as expected, lamented the loss of principles and deterioration that Kuwaiti society is experiencing. They offered their condolences to their Kuwaiti brothers while others prayed that this kind of thing wouldn’t cross the border onto our Saudi soil.

It is frustrating that most of the negative comments stressed that the women attending the session of the Kuwaiti Parliament had failed to cover their hair. For some, it could get no worse than that and so they bowed out of any subsequent discussion. Such women, they contended, were rebelling against God’s laws.

Evidently those people simply assumed that a veil was the only thing that determined a woman’s role. It is no surprise that conservative MPs added a clause stipulating that women must abide by Islamic law when voting or running for office.

I had to stop for a moment after reading these things on the web. Isn’t it sad that what matters most to people is not whether the women can achieve something good or whether they can offer society anything of value. The only thing that mattered to those men was that the women’s hair was uncovered and that they might later mix with men. Surely if they had bothered to look around in Kuwait, they would have noticed that men and women in Kuwait mix everywhere and that not all Kuwaiti women cover their hair. The lack of a hair covering did not prevent the women from participating in the development their country is going through. The Kuwaiti crown prince said, “Women have shown they are able partners for men in handling family and social responsibilities and in serving the nation.”

This really addressed the major point that most Gulf men try to ignore. If women are able to fulfill their responsibilities at home, if they are the main influence in bringing up children and if many of them also work in important jobs — as doctors and teachers — how is it possible that they are not competent to share in the making of decisions which influence all of society? How many men have trusted a woman doctor with their health and sometimes even their lives? If that is so, why can they not trust her to help in running the country?

A newspaper reporter asked some prominent Saudi women what their opinions were about Kuwait’s decision; most of them were hopeful of being able to vote in four years’ time in the next municipal elections. Hatoon Al-Fassi of King Saud University pointed out the obvious when she said that we live in a different world here since we do not have a parliament and the Shoura Council members are all appointed. And those who are appointed are all men even though some women do serve as consultants.

Are Saudi women not ready to participate in their nation’s affairs and have their experience valued and used? As far as we can see, women here are eager to prove that they can do the job. When five Saudi women announced they were willing to run as candidates in the municipal elections, they did not just say so; they worked hard to get their voices heard and presented their platforms before most of the male candidates had written theirs. Later, of course, women were excluded from the elections but were given the hope that they would vote and stand for office in 2009.

This is only one part of the story; our problem is not whether women are able to participate in the decision— making which affects their futures. There is the more pressing reality that makes us realize that women are not independent enough to participate in this kind of political activity. Not because they lack the political vision nor because their minds are inferior but because they are women and our society’s Achilles heel is women. Women are the part of society that has to be covered, both figuratively and literally.

If women need permission to travel, work and get legal documents, then how can we expect that she will ever be able to participate in public life? The mentality of those who criticized the Kuwaiti women is everywhere among us. There are those in Saudi Arabia who think that women should stay at home and that if she goes out to work, she is abandoning her responsibility as a wife and mother and sacrificing her family. I wonder under these circumstances if the mere presence of women as members of any public council would be seen as a facet in the nation’s development.

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An Egyptian newspaper had a full page of discussion on the fact that no Arab university made it onto the list of the world’s 500 top universities. And in a discussion with a group of friends on that same subject, we tried to pinpoint the reasons for the sad state of Arab universities and of Saudi ones in particular.

One said that our universities are not producing good candidates for jobs, which means there is something missing in what the university is offering students.

Another said the situation begins in our schools. Many students who get into university are academically weak and lack motivation.

Then they graduate, become teachers themselves and have nothing to offer their students — not to mention how the school systems close down their normal curiosity.

We are running around in a circle. Where does the problem begin? Is it the school or a malfunctioning educational system or is it the university, which cannot produce what society requires or is it the fault of improperly trained teachers? These questions will hang in the air, I fear, until a miracle happens.