Qatar Philatelic History: Women in Qatar Philately

In today's Qatar, women have reached the highest positions and gained world-wide fame for numerous initiatives. A number of websites are devoted to highlight their successes:

To reach this level, there have to have been some pioneering women leading the way. I'm no expert on this front, so the below list is a short compilation of some of these pioneers:

Mrs. Amina Mahmoud Al-Jaydha - the first female teacher in Qatar, eventually becoming the first female Principle of a government school in Qatar. Changing the way girls were taught in Qatar (1953).
Dr. Iqbal Hamdy - One of the first female obstetrician in Qatar able to convince the then Qatar Ruler, H.H. the Amir Sheikh Ali Bin Abdullah Al Thani to convert a hospital built for Tuberculosis to be used for Maternity Hospital (1960s).
Sheikha Ahmed Al-Mahmoud - the first women of the Qatari Cabinet on her appointment to Minister of Education (2000).
Dr. Hyat Khalil Hassan Nazar Heji - the first Qatari Braille teacher in Qatar and Director of the Al Noor Institute for the Visually Impaired (2007).
Women joined the Qatar Olympic team participating in the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
In the legal circles Ms. Maryam Abdullah Al-Jaber - the first female prosecutor at the Arabian Gulf level, and Judge Hessa Ahmed Abdullah Al-Sulaiti - the first Qatari female judge.
In the diplomatic arena to highlight Her Excellency Sheikha Alia Ahmed Bint Saif Al Thani - the first Qatari woman to be appointed as Permanent Representative to the European Headquarters of the United Nations in Europe, later to hold the same post in New York.
Her Excellency Lolwah Al-Khater - the first female spokesperson for the Ministry.
Mrs. Fatima Shaddad - the first popular Qatari singer.

No doubt there have been many more, and I apologise for not listing everyone of them. As can be seen from the above list, some of these women would have been pioneers in their own field any where in the world, not just Qatar.

In relation to our main theme, philately, it is interesting to point out that most of the Trucial States (with the exception of Abu Dhabi) issued many stamps depicting both famous men and women, or famous paintings with Men and Women. This is not the case for Qatar, Bahrain nor Kuwait.

The only personalities on Qatar stamp issues in general are Qatari Rulers with a few exceptions as follows:

World Leaders (1966 & 1968)
Cosmonauts / Astronauts (1966 & 1969)
Baden-Powel (1967)
Golden Age Scholars (1971)
GCC Rulers (1990)
Qatar Football Team (2020) - but as a personal stamps - not a true stamp issue

So, perhaps it is not surprising that other than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1957 issue overprinted with QATAR), no other woman has been featured on Qatar's stamps. This is not a statement on women in Qatar society, as they have been, and still are, very influential in all walk of life. There was one stamp designed, printed but never released featuring a female Russian Cosmonaut Valentina Tcherechkova (1966).

Below picture lists all the Qatar stamp sets depicting women in one manner or other as well as the two stamp sets that were painted by Qatari women (click on it to learn more).

Click to enlarge

Should you like to learn more on the Russian Cosmonaut Valentina Tcherechkova click on the stamp below.

If you are interested in the theme of Women in Philately, you would be happy to know that there is an association just for this, and they have a FaceBook account, please click on the stamp below to learn more