As studies have examined various state responses to COVID-19, state capacity has emerged as a major explanation. It is often argued that the higher the state capacity, the better the outcomes. The state capacity is often measured as the state's ability to tailor and implement policies, extract resources, and effectively communicate with its citizens while the outcomes are usually measured as the total death, death rate, hospitalization rate, infection rate, etc. Accordingly, states with high capacity, such as the Gulf countries with rich rentier resources, rank high on success indicators, such as mortality rates, vaccination numbers, infection rates, and the like, while low-capacity states, such as Yemen, Syria, Egypt, and Syria, rank low. This paper starts with the conviction that the common conceptualization of state capacity respect to the COVID-19 pandemic responses is incomplete and misleading as it bypasses the gender link. In other words, this understanding of state capacity fails to acknowledge women's roles as “hidden actors”. During the pandemic, women’s unique roles ranging from providing child and elderly care, homeschooling, food preparation and home maintenance to the sick care at hospitals have been key. How can we re-conceptualize state capacity so that the women's roles are integrated? As part of a book project that examines multiple MENA countries, this paper deals with this theoretical question of re-conceptualization of state capacity. This effort is significant because only then we can measure the often-neglected women's roles during this process and make policies accordingly. This paper will review literature on state and state capacity from a feminist angle and propose a new framework.