I argue most Arab countries have?adopted similar forms of state-feminism in an effort to respond to?pressures from grassroots civil-society organizations and from external actors. The latter include donor countries (mainly EU and USA) and international organizations (UN agencies, World Bank, IMF). This state feminism generally takes the form of gender quotas in elected bodies, the appointment of women to “soft” positions in the executive (cabinet), and legislation that seeks to advance women’s rights. While they all operate out of the same state-feminist playbook, these countries vary in the timing, motivation, and effectiveness of their women friendly policies. I divide Arab states into five categories, traditional monarchies, countries in transition, sectarian states, states with rentier economies, and conflict afflicted states. This paper will address rentier states. In the MENA region, rentier states are those where political authority is strongly mediated through the exploitation of oil. These states have largely maintained a stable bargain in which support for the regime is significantly predicated upon economic prosperity. These rentier economies have used the money that comes from oil sales to uphold an implicit social contract with their populations whereby the needs of the population are taken care of from the “cradle to the grave,” and no taxation policy is imposed in exchange for political quiescence. In MENA, there are two types of rentier economies: monarchies and populist republics, the representational archetype of which are Saudi Arabia and Algeria. This paper aims to compare the approaches taken by both countries, and to show that these two very different political systems have nonetheless adopted similar approaches to the issue of women’s political rights, albeit at different speeds. The speeds are determined by the political, social and economic conditions the country is undergoing and by the responsiveness of the state to external and internal pressures for reform.