GULF ARAB WOMEN BETWEEN CULTURAL RESISTANCE AND KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

Habits, custom, traditions and beliefs are the terms normally used to define resistance of informal bonds; the interaction of these aspects with formal rules within a certain community affects daily life by directing its members’ activities and way of life. Within this perspective, this article presents an outline of the evolving role of women in the economy of the Gulf Arab countries, in the light of transformations and changes generated by the oil era, and in the light of cultural resistance factors still affecting these societies, in which the development of women’s full economic potential is still restricted by certain cultural limitations. Women between the traditional environment and the advent of the oil era, modern education and the economic role of women, and the new phase in which education is more and more seen as an agent of modernisation and development are the main investigated aspects.