After obtaining a PhD in Population Economics from Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Rola Dashti moved back to her native Kuwait, where she became involved in economic development and Women’s rights projects. She has held prominent positions for research and development groups such as the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research and the Kuwait National Bank, where she served as a Senior Economist. She has worked with the Red Cross in southern Lebanon, led movements to uncover information on Kuwaiti political prisoners during the Gulf War, and helped women to initiate grassroots activism throughout rural Tunisia and Yemen.

Currently, she is a member of the executive committee of Young Arab Leaders (Kuwait Chapter) and is the first woman to chair the Kuwait Economic Society. She was the first woman ever elected as head of a professional association in Kuwait. According to a VOA news report on June 28, 2006, “Dashti has made a career of defying expectations. She comes from a large, traditional Shi'ite family. Her late father, himself a member of parliament, had four wives, and she has 23 brothers and sisters. She is happily single at the age of 42, and wears her hair uncovered, pulled back in a neat pony tail.”

Today, Dr. Dashti is a leading advocate of women’s rights in Kuwait. Since the Kuwaiti parliament was established in 1962, women had been banned from participation in politics. In a speech delivered at the American Enterprise Institute, Dashti stated, “Radical Islamists wanted to limit our freedom, control our future and our destiny.  They wanted to confine our role to cooking, cleaning and being subservient to men.  We refused [to allow] these extremists to marginalize us and demanded that women should have an active role in public life, contribute to society and be granted her constitutional rights.”  (AEI Speech, January 13, 2006)

In 2005, Dr. Dashti lobbied successfully for a decree allowing Kuwaiti women the right to vote and run for parliamentary office. Soon after, she became one of the first women to ever run for parliamentary office in her country. “May 16, 2005, may just be another day for you,” she states, “…but for Kuwaiti women it's a day of recognition of being citizens. It's a day to our road to freedom and liberty. It was a day where we won our first battle against the ideology of radical extremists and terrorists.  It's a day when women of Kuwait got their political right to run and vote for Parliament after 40 years of struggle, a struggle that was not easy.  Yes, we were not terrorized physically, but we were continuously terrorized psychologically and socially.” (AEI Speech, January 13, 2006) Dr. Dashti refused to succumb to political pressures to wear a hijab during her election campaign.  “If I just put [on] the hijab today, I'll gain six or seven hundred votes, but I'm not going to do this," she said in a VOA interview.

Dr. Dashti is a leading expert in her field, and has been profiled by the BBC (here and here) and Washington Post (here and here) for her continued dedication to the cause of women’s rights and equality. She believes that media is a key outlet for liberal activists in the struggle for reform, and that the United States and other outside actors should help spur grassroots activism and civil society in the Middle East.

In a June 2005 speech, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Cheney stated, "And, in Kuwait, a brave leader named Rola Dashti, led the movement to secure the right of Kuwait's women to vote.  She spoke out to the men leading her country.  She reminded them that women are Kuwaiti too.  She met with the student union at Kuwait University to encourage them to join her movement.  The young men leading the student union agreed and brought hundreds of their members to Rola's rallies.  They joined the women sitting in the gallery of Kuwait's parliament the day of the historic vote.  And the morning after the vote - having tasted the power of democracy-they called Rola to say, "That was fantastic...what issue are we going to tackle next?"