100 online
 
Most Popular Choices
Share on Facebook 15 Printer Friendly Page More Sharing
General News   

Women in Kuwait Today Contrasted with Sandra Day O'Conner's mid-20th Century America

By       (Page 1 of 3 pages)   No comments
Follow Me on Twitter     Message Kevin Anthony Stoda
Become a Fan
  (9 fans)
Women in Kuwait Today Contrasted with Sandra Day O'Conner's mid-20th Century America By Kevin A. Stoda, Hawally (Kuwait)

This past weekend the BBC played a lengthy interview with ex-Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner. In the interview with BBC-radio, O'Conner shared that the glass ceiling for women had been extremely high in the legal professions of mid-20th Century USA.

O'Conner related the fact that for many months after her graduation from the law school Stanford University, she had received no job offers.

Women were just not being hired at that junction in U.S history. The only direct offer of employment which O'Conner received in California that first year was to work as a legal secretary. (Naturally, she turned that offer down.)

It was 1949 when she had entered Stanford University. Many men had come home from WWII and with the GI Bill in hand were able to study for the first time in their lives. It was a decade when women made up only 1% of all law school students studying in the entire USA.

In desperation, and just prior to her wedding day--near the end of that same year of her graduation--, O'Conner finally wrote a distant county official who had once indicated that if he ever received more cash from his country supervisor, he would consider hiring her.

In the letter to this particular county attorney, O'Conner explained that she was volunteering to work for the man's department for free--and even humbly sit at a desk next to his secretary in front of his own office for a many months until his department could at some future time have more moneys allocated by the county where he worked in order to eventually pay her a salary.

That county attorney agreed.

Luckily, after only three or four months, that particular county official was promoted to another higher post, whereby he had more input into the county's budget.

That lawyer was then able to come up with cash for that legal department to finally be able to pay a salary to the young Sandra Day O'Conner for her various legal efforts

WOMEN IN GULF ARAB STATES: MID-CENTURY THROUGH TODAY

The former U.S. Supreme Court Justice O'Conner's experience in America in the decade after WWII puts in clearer focus the world of women in Kuwait today-in 2007.

Around 1950, various Gulf Arab states, such as the Emirate of Sharjah in the UAE (where I used to teach), didn't even have a public school till 1954 and a school for girls followed sometime later.

The only university in the City of Sharjah, situated 10 minutes from downtown Dubai., through the end of the 1980s was a technology school.

Now there are 4 or 5 universities functioning in the Sharjah emirate. In comparison, in Kuwait, where I live now, there was no public school for boys till 1912, and it wasn't till the late 1930s that the first girl's school was opened. There was no university in Kuwait until 1965, and women weren't initially allowed to attend, but now make up the majority of students on campus.

Similarly, as Justice Sandra Day O'Conner noted during her interview with BBC, even though American women only made up 1% of the law school population in 1949, by 2007 the majority of students in America's law schools are currently women.

In short, both in the USA and in the Gulf Arab states, women's opportunities to be educated grew substantially after WWII-just as both region's economies grew.

2007 SURVEY OF WOMEN IN KUWAITI UNIVERSITIES

Roxanne Issurdatt recently published in a Kuwaiti weekend newspaper, the FRIDAY TIMES, an article entitled "What a Kuwaiti Girl Really Wants".

Next Page  1  |  2  |  3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

Rate It | View Ratings

Kevin Anthony Stoda Social Media Pages: Facebook Page       Twitter Page       Linked In Page       Instagram page url on login Profile not filled in

KEVIN STODA-has been blessed to have either traveled in or worked in nearly 100 countries on five continents over the past two and a half decades.--He sees himself as a peace educator and have been-- a promoter of good economic and social development--making-him an enemy of my homelands humongous DEFENSE SPENDING and its focus on using weapons to try and solve global (more...)
 

Go To Commenting
The views expressed herein are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
Follow Me on Twitter     Writers Guidelines

 
Contact AuthorContact Author Contact EditorContact Editor Author PageView Authors' Articles
Support OpEdNews

OpEdNews depends upon can't survive without your help.

If you value this article and the work of OpEdNews, please either Donate or Purchase a premium membership.

STAY IN THE KNOW
If you've enjoyed this, sign up for our daily or weekly newsletter to get lots of great progressive content.
Daily Weekly     OpEd News Newsletter
Name
Email
   (Opens new browser window)
 

Most Popular Articles by this Author:     (View All Most Popular Articles by this Author)

BED-INs and Other Protests Needed Now

Why have German-, Italian- and Latin American Internment during WWII been kept out of the USA History books?

GULF CIVIL SOCIETY FORUM calls for Gulf Monarchies to abandon absolutism and to adopt European-style Parliaments

TRIBE, TRIBALISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE-KUWAIT 2008

A WORLD OF PRETENDERS: Partial Review of the Filipino Novel, THE PRETENDERS by F. Sionil Jose

PHILIPP ROESLER, of Vietnamese Descent. to Head the Health Ministry in Germany, as his own Party Plans to Push for more

To View Comments or Join the Conversation:

Tell A Friend