Last week I wrote about recent criminal law reforms in Jordan that finally stood victorious for victims of rape cases. The system used to allow convicted rapist to go free if they marry their victims, which usually would happen under fake and coerced approval forced by the victim's family who want to "clear their family's name of any disgrace." Due to the new reforms, a rapist would never go free even if he wanted to marry the victim. While this is a huge win for women's rights (as in to finally stand for women and give them their judicial rights and autonomy), this is just one of many problems involving social pressure on women leading to institutional gender inequality. Women's rights activists in Jordan have always been incredibly active and here are some pictures showing daily struggles women go through.
1. Mistreatment and domestic abuse
The caption reads "a man abuses the woman when he has a blind trust that she will never leave." Essentially, people in committed relationships generally treat each other better when they believe they have an equal ability to call things off at any time, but when one person is sure their partner is staying no matter what, that is when they abuse it.
2. Love is not the reason to get married
The caption tells a conversation between a young lady and her mother who is anxiously and desperately asking when she will ever get married. The lady answers "I will get married just in time when I find a person I feel comfortable with. Marriage, Mom, is not just a curtain at the end of a play. Love that does not make us happy and comfortable is not love, but it is merely a struggle and a lie desperately protected by society who turns a blind eye to marriages based on such a lie. And if you remove the masks put on by half of the married couples out there, you will find nothing but regretful people weeping their mistake of rushing into something they were not ready for..." This tackles the issue of arranged marriage that is so incredibly forced and pressured by families who just want their daughters to get married to the first person who walks in the door, caring little to nothing about the women who will have to live with someone they don't know and will have to learn to love... seems unreasonable to me.
3. More social pressure on women to get married
Not only does the family pressure this kind of marriage that is not based on love, other members of the society do too such as friends, not necessarily on purpose. The caption in the picture says "Who is the most stupid woman out there? It is that one who accepted the first man who asked her hand just for the sole reason that her friends got married at the same age. Staying single is better than a failed marriage..." A lot of friends would tease their single friends about being single and that just pressures the woman to make an irrational choice.
4. And... more social pressure
Women would not feel pressured into irrational choices in marriage if they were not socially pressured. An unmarried woman is labeled as "unwanted and old" and a divorced woman is just "unwanted". The caption reads "she did not love him but she was worried about being labeled old and unwanted so she agreed to marry him. Then she was not happy with him but she was worried she would be labeled as a divorced unwanted woman so she did not leave him".
5. "We want to celebrate you..."
This shows more and more pressure on women to get married through a traditional arranged marriage. Generally starting with a man telling his mother "find me a wife", the mother then works slowly through her network of other women to compile a list and then the visitations start. In most relations, marriage is the end result to celebrate love for each other not the first outright intention. Generally a man asks a woman if she wants to have dinner or coffee not if she wants to get married! The caption reads "go my daughter sit with the stranger man and try to feel comfortable with him and know him well and convince his mother to love you. But hey you only have 15 minutes to tell us you approve so that you can start your life with a man you absolutely do not know.. Come on my daughter we just want to celebrate you."
6. Favoring male babies over female babies
"One judge said I had never gotten a case of a girl disobeying her parents. No. It is always the boys. And despite that, there are still those who are saddened when their wives give birth to a baby girl". While this is not so much the case anymore, thankfully, families still feel some kind of concern parenting a girl and generally pray for the day they see her married. The idea is to "pass her along to the next man" which is reiterated by the disgusting traditional proverb "a girl is her parent's concern from the day they are born to the day they die".
7. Friendliness is misunderstood and negatively labeled
The caption reads "Dear Jordanian man, for the millionth time, if a female receptionist or flight attendant or a nurse smiled at you, that is actually part of her job, that does not mean god smiled down on you and gave you a green light to hit on her.. please stop."
8. The double standards
Again this is the terrible role family plays in oppressing women. If a woman is seen with a man not related to her, her family goes insane because they think she is "bringing shame to their family name".. The caption here says "What? So you saw him giving her a hug?! Shoot her, choke her, burn her.. don't worry my son, we are all behind you on this and the court will give you an easy ruling!!" The ironic part about this is that the father in this picture who is married is out with another woman..
9. Terrible social conduct
Jordan is not an exception when it comes to women facing daily harassment and catcalling. In this picture here the man is telling his opinion with a sigh that the news has a lot of stories about "honor killing.. early divorce.. sexual harassment and assault.. It is all because of lack of sex education."
10. Misperception of women's role in society
This is a picture of an advertisement piece for a dishwasher. It shows a man standing next to a dishwasher with a caption saying "spoil her with an Ariston dishwasher." This just shows what society perceives of women in a way that their place is in the kitchen doing chores all the time and in order for one to "spoil" his wife or mother, he should get her a dishwasher. Surely that will make her do less work, but the fact that this is addressed in this narrative is highly offensive and provocative.
11. Women in politics are not taken seriously
Last year in one of the parliamentary debates in Jordan, a female member of the parliament, Hind Al Fayez was harassed by a male member of the parliament, Yahya Al Saud. The actual debate topic is beyond the topic here, but Hind was screamed at by Yahya who repeatedly shouted "sit down, Hind" when Hind was speaking in the debate after her microphone was shut off. Hind kept on talking while Yahya demanded that she sits down and shuts up. He went on saying a bunch of stereotypical roles a woman should do instead of being in the parliament, things like "sit with their husbands", "being a wife", and "cook". Then he blamed the women quota for the problems of the parliament while other male members were giggling around her. This received a negative feedback around Jordan with a hashtag telling Al Fayez to never sit down and continue her great work. She is in fact regarded as one of the best parliamentarians in Jordan.
