Women's rights activists protest in front of Parliament in Amman, Jordan on the 1st of December 2016 calling for an end to violence against women. Picture from the Jordanian Women Union’s Facebook Page. Wajd Shamayleh’s family won’t discuss women’s rights at the dinner table. Too often it ends in a quarrel. In the eyes of her family, women shouldn’t talk about politics or religion. “They think a woman should study, have a degree and work but be limited in what she does or says,” explains 27-year-old Shamayleh.
Even as a child, growing up in a conservative community in Jordan, she found these restrictions difficult to digest. While her younger brothers spoke their minds freely, she was told to shush, “because as a girl you should be quiet.” For Shamayleh, the expectation that she would slot into traditional roles felt unnatural. “I had something in me that kept asking why I should follow a certain path and not have my own dreams. Why, when I wanted to start work, did it have to be a job my father found for me?
Her frustration is widely felt in Jordan, where, despite having one of the highest female literacy rates in the region, women make up just 22 percent of the workforce. “A lot of girls here are highly educated but they don’t care about getting a job at the end of their studies. They just want to get married because their family tells them that’s the best thing they can do and the only way to be complete,” says Nadine Ibrahim, 28, a local dentist who takes an active interest in women’s rights.
