A Review of the Status and Role of Women in the Middle East Political Participation

Public participation in political affairs as a result of willingness to take part in political system is one of the outcomes and achievements of advanced democracy. Thus participation can be deemed as one of the criteria for success of comprehensive development. Women as half of the societie's force and as an important source of development play a substantial role in the development of human societies. Men have not desired or have failed to defend women's interests. As such, women's participation in all social activities, such as politics is necessary to the extent that it can be said that assuming a minority role in political affairs on the part of women stalls democracy. United Nations Human Development which reports the rank of different countries in human development, has recently (2009) issued a report of measures taken by countries under study concerning the degree of government commitment and efforts in achieving goals of the " Gender Empowerment" program. In the table provided special care has been heeded to women participation and involvement in politics. Researchers, in this analytical-descriptive study, make an effort to answer the question as to why there is a low rate of women political participation in the Middle East. To this end and further to find the underlying reasons a comparative analysis was made of the status of the region's countries in world's democracy and of political and economical participation rate of women in the Middle East