Sexism and Qatari Women's Educational Advancement

Christina Paschyn has an article about how Qatari women, who are a significant majority in higher education, are starting to find professional employment.  I was really struck by the idea that their education dominance stems from the additional challenges they face building careers:

Women outperform the men at every level of education in Qatar and outnumber them in college classrooms by nearly two to one. High school and university instructors often complain male students seem bored and unmotivated.

Still, Qatar remains a patriarchal society in which boys grow up knowing that they will inherit family businesses or easily find high-paying government or military jobs that may not require a degree. Men have more social freedom than women, which helps explain their low university enrollment rates, says Moza Almalki, a Qatari psychologist.

To flip that to the other side, women in Qatar may enroll in college and study harder because society does not automatically hand things to them.