This study aims at assessing the role of women quota in empowering women and enabling them to reach parliaments and decision-making positions as a step towards gaining their rights in Arab societies, with special reference to social and religious factors which play an effective role in the Arab World.The study is based on the hypothesis that women do not have a chance to win seats or have representatives via traditional elections due to social reasons and popular interpretation of religion. Consequently, the presence of women and equality between sexes is impossible without quota application.The study carries out a comparative analysis between results of elections held in different parts of the Arab world with and without quotas showing a clear difference in the level of women representation in both cases. The study assures that there is a trend among political parties and religious authorities towards accepting the quota despite it being a sensitive issue. Keywords:quota, elections, Arab world, religion, women empowerment.INTRODUCTIONWomen quota and the possibility of adopting it as a means for empowering women and gaining equal rights has been highly debated in the Arab societies during the previous decades. The lack of women representatives in legislative councils and decision-making positions has contributed to the absence of women life issues representation, and the adopting of legislations that assure women’s rights. Few women representatives reach legislative councils via traditional elections due to a number of social reasons (Dhailmi, 2015), therefore, the call for applying the women quota has become a necessity to represent women and realize their active participation in decision making in the society. This is what led women groups and supporters to call for the application of the quota in elections. Enabling women and engaging them in decision-making has become the main concern of many social reformers in the Arab world. Yet, the women quota had not been present in the Arab World until the end of the 20th century; therefore, there is little research on it. To fill this gap, this study assesses the role of women quota in enabling women to reach parliaments and decision-making positions in the Arab World and its role in supporting women rights. In addition, it discusses the two opposing positions regarding the acceptance of women quota to understand the reasons for such stance. In particular, this study analyzes the claims of the opposing group who totally reject women quota

Title

Journal of Positive School Psychology

Publisher

Journal of Positive School Psychology

Publisher Country

Turkey

Indexing

Scopus

Impact Factor

0.0

Publication Type

Online only

Volume

6

Year

2022

Pages

30