1st Woman Appointed As Chief of Court
Good news; now we have women police officers, nurses, doctors, engineers, journalists, garbage-truck drivers, professors, teachers, mini-Sheikhs, nuns (obviously), managers, ministers, parliament members, and chiefs of court.
AMMAN — The first woman to hold the position of chief of court was appointed on Monday by the High Judiciary Board and described her new position as a big step forward for Arab women.
“This is a very important step for Arab women in the region; it is tough competition to be appointed as a decision-maker,” said Ihssan Barakat, who three years ago, also became the first woman judge to serve in the Appeals Court.
In her new post of Chief of the Court of First Instance in west Amman, Barakat will be in charge of 22 judges and 81 employees.
She told The Jordan Times yesterday that she is up to “the tough task” of leading the second highest court in Amman, adding that her number one priority will be to provide an efficient judicial system.
“The constitutional law gives every Jordanian citizen the right to obtain justice; my goal is to make it as hassle- free, fast and fair as possible… going to court should not be a punishment,” she said.
As a founding member and present vice chairman of the Arab Women Legal Network, Barakat’s appointment is in line with her determination to raise the capacity of women leaders in the region.
Formed in 2005 and headquartered in Jordan, the network is a nonprofit, nongovernmental regional entity that aims to facilitate the advancement of Arab women working in the legal field.
I have one reservation on something included in this article by the Jordan Times. Barakat is a chairwoman, and not a chairman, of the Arab Women Legal Network. Honestly, let’s be accurate and sex-sensitive — it’s the politically correct thing to do.
Oh, and good thing Barakat is veiled. So much for humbugs saying Muslim women are not allowed to lead or to be in positions of power. Check your references in context.
I hope Barakat and other leading Jordanian women would work to ensure that our laws do not contradict the constitution, like I found previously regarding women in the Jordanian labor law.
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May 29th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
<p>tololy,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">If you want to galvanize the intellectuals, the social activists, and the advocates of women right groups, you must show by concrete examples the number of women that were impacted as a result of the incongruence between the labor law and the constitution. It isn’t enough to declare that there is a contradiction and stop right there, it is equally not enough to purport that the labor laws were discriminatory due to their gender specific nature without telling us what profession/s did XYZ number of women applied for and were denied employment due to their gender. You do bring up a very compelling argument about the existing disparity between the genders in labor law but at the same time you don’t show how you your friends, or other women that you know of were impacted by it. In other words, while your topic provides a very interesting preamble for further discussion, it is highly broad based, too generalized, and lacks profound specificity with which one can use as a spring board for future attempts at amending the constitution [as per your request]. I don’t pretend to be in any way, shape, or form cognizant with the Jordanian constitution or the Jordanian labor laws. I’m only hinging on past precedent cases and on my life time experience as a labor manager. Even if there is a contradiction as you state in your February post, the constitution will supersede the labor laws since the constitution to the best of my knowledge is considered a redline and can’t be double crossed or transgressed by any authority labor or otherwise. It seems to me that you are very passionate about the subject matter to a degree where the usage in the report of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>chairman in place of a charwoman have triggered your ire although according to Wikipedia the usage of either [or] is gender neutral & still widely used in a number of highly advanced and sophisticated western civilizations.
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May 29th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks for your input, Hatem. I value your advice and I do
agree with you that there needs to be some sort of research and concrete
examples to support my argument. I do not, however, have the time to do that
research — and that’s my problem.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The argument is obvious though. There is contradiction
between the Constitution and the labor law in <st1:country-region _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on"><st1:place _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on">Jordan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. It needs to be supported by
numbers and stats, and I agree with you on that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As for using the generic “chairman” instead of “chairwoman” I
beg to differ with you and with Wikipedia. A person reading an article on “the
chairman of X” would assume that the latter is a man, and not a woman. This
would cause additional confusion if the article is not supplemented with a
picture or if the reader cannot recognize the sex of the subject “chairman” through
his or her name and other info within the article.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The first image that comes to mind when one reads “chairman”
is, well, a man. This first image is crucial in impressing a person’s
perception and I believe it is not fair to call women “men” and vice versa. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On a very relevant note, research has shown that using the
generic “he” is not really gender neutral while using “they” is. (Crawford, Mary
and Rhoda Unger. Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology. 3rd ed. <st1:place _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on"><st1:city _moz-userdefined="" w:st="on">Fairfield</st1:city></st1:place>: McGraw-Hill, 2000.)<o:p _moz-userdefined=""> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By the same token, why don’t we say “chairperson” and stay
on the safe side? To me, it’s either chairperson or chairwoman that would do
women leaders justice. They are not men, and very few of them want the
compulsory honour of being mistaken for men in a label.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p _moz-userdefined=""> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I can’t even imagine what would happen if a man was called a
“chairwoman.” Can you?</p>
May 30th, 2007 at 1:04 am
[…] Jordanian blogger Tololy announces the appointment of a woman chief of court in her country. “Good news; now we have women police officers, nurses, doctors, engineers, journalists, garbage-truck drivers, professors, teachers, mini-Sheikhs, nuns (obviously), managers, ministers, parliament members, and chiefs of court,” she notes. Share This […]
May 30th, 2007 at 8:31 am
Good news indeed, but we still have a long way to go.
May 30th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">I agree with you on confusing the gender of the person by only reading their names, for the longest period of time I was under the impression that the governor of the central bank of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Jordan</place></country-region> is a woman. When I read the name Dr. Umayya Toukan in the print without seeing a picture to go along with it, the first mental image that comes to my mind is that the central bank of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Jordan</place></country-region> boss is a woman. Recently I saw his name along with a picture and I felt stupid since all along I was thinking that he was a woman. So yeah I do agree that the name or even the appellation can be tricky.<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial">
<p></p></span></p>