Jordanian Women Who Don't Work

More and more Jordanian households are starting to depend on the working woman's income. Clearly, Jordanian women are smarter and get much better grades than men. However there remains a big chunk of Jordanian women who do not work.

I like to classify them into certain groups.

1- The Born-To-Get-Married

Those women have no skills. They finished high school but they shouldn't have. Some of them got a college or a university degree afterwards and they shouldn't have, but they really have no skills. They have tried hard sometimes to learn something but they couldn't manage to be useful and no sane work place would hire them. They are the women who studied business but know nothing about business, studied English but can't speak it ....etc. They are everywhere. These women don't work and they shouldn't. They were born to find a good husband and be a great cook and raise children. Strangely enough most of these women end up marrying a loser, their kids go to jail and their cooking is awful.

2- The Marriage-Abused

Those women were working at one point and having a good time but they married a rich husband. He kind of forced them to stay home because the vast majority of Jordanians- men and women alike- believe a woman should not work unless she and her husband needed money. The man is usually kind enough to tell her she needs to stay home as a condition for marriage. Most women agree.

3- The Work-Abused

This a silent group but I believe it's a big one. It includes women who really work their ass off day and night and do very well at their job, but they're not appreciated. They're underpaid, made fun of, talked about in the office for whatever reason, and even sexually harassed. They try working at other places but they face the same difficulty everywhere until they realize they live in a society that looks down on women. When they try to speak up, they're 45 and single and pissed and people think they're pissed just because they're single. In Jordan they become angry and depressed. In the US they become lesbians.

4- Mothers

These women worked because they loved to work, mostly, or they just needed the money, or they just wanted to go somewhere to meet a guy, or they just wanted to work so people won't call them losers, or because their parents needed the money or because normally once you finish college you have to work. Once they got married and had kids, they voluntarily decided to stay home and raise their kids. Many of them have a part a time job, or join a Jordanian woman society, one of those societies that keep Dunes club from getting bankrupt.

5- The Scum of the Earth.

This group is getting bigger. It includes women who got married, usually very recently, who decide to stay home for no obvious reason and do nothing. They have a degree, they have a supportive husband, they even have a maid, and they own a car, and they have worked before and are very healthy, but they decided to not work. I feel ashamed when I remember that I belong to the same animal kingdom that includes those wastes of skin. These women are the reason we have drought, volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disaster like Jad Chouari.