Tweeted Attitudes towards Women Parliamentary Candidates in Kuwait

Abstract

This study explores how Kuwaitis use Twitter to communicate their attitudes towards women Parliamentary candidates (WCs) in a traditionally male-dominated society, and how these tweeted attitudes are thematically constructed, either negatively or positively. The study also explores how these attitudes differ according to gender and evolve quantitatively and qualitatively over subsequent elections. A total of 1744 tweets about all eight women candidates in 2013 posted for 40 days prior to the Kuwait Parliamentary Election were retrieved and analyzed. The tweets posted about the two women candidates of those eight who continued to run in 2016 and 2020 were also analyzed in terms of length, content, and themes. Gender significantly correlated with attitudes in the first election, but not in the subsequent two elections. Tweeted attitudes turned to be more elaborate, information-based, and longer over consecutive elections. The dominant positive theme was generic, whereas the dominant negative theme was specific, and candidate based. Women candidates were praised for acting like men, whereas they are mocked for looking like men.