After a long meeting a couple of days ago, I attempted to get on an elevator on my out of a building only to find it packed. Taking a step back and allowing the doors to close and move on, I caught a glimpse the elevator’s passengers and who should be inside but my long lost friend Dina! As the doors closed I knew that she had seen me and made an effort to find her, while she, apparently, attempted to do the same. For a while we travelled up and down in opposing elevators, trying to meet on common ground, which we eventually and fortunately did, greeting each other with a nice hug. We gossiped all the way up to Mecca Street, where we had a coffee at Zataar wa Zeit.

I always liked Dina. She’s not spectacular, but steady and dependable. We attended the same university, she was one of the few girls I could share a laugh with during my university days. We started reminiscing, recalling our dear professors, and as the conversation progressed, we started sharing stories that we could not share when we were younger; mostly about abuse of power, mistreatment, unethical flirtations and injustice in grading.

I realized that my “bad” university experiences, which was defined by a few negative remarks I received from a certain teaching staff member, was not at all bad in comparison to what other girls went through. Dina’s experience included shouting and humiliation, comments related to her appearance, in addition to being asked to go to a certain staff member’s offices after school hours. I was not sure I wanted to know for what purpose.

Dina’s stories brought to my mind Rama’s story. A young woman I work with, Rama is a student in one of our respectable universities. In a drama workshop that took place this last Ramadan, participants were asked to act scenes from their lives that had left a mark on them. Rama chose to act out a scene that took place between her and a teacher at her university. She told the story innocently, oblivious to the fact that what she was detailing was in fact considered sexual harassment.

In a nutshell, her teacher asked her to go to his office and when she did not, he started making fun of her in front of her colleagues in class. She decided to drop the class, which required his permission. He assured her that she was a good student and was sure to pass. When her final result came out, she was surprised to find that she failed the class even though she did well in her exams. The professor did not shy away from telling her that “stupid girls” who do not go to his office don’t deserve to pass! Rama could do nothing and could tell no one, as her parents were not very happy that she was going to university to start with. They preferred her to settle down with a nice husband and live like a modern-day princess.

The parallels between these two women’s stories truly surprised me. I mean, things really take a long time to change in Jordan.

The thing is, girls in Jordan go through different kinds of situations that they can’t share, mostly because this means a scandal in a closed society where victims are the ones who get punished. Instead, they prefer to shut up, bite the bullet and live their lives.

After our long candid conversation, I confessed to Dina that for a while after I graduated, I regretted that I did not slash the tires of a certain professor who I felt had verbally abused me. His verbal flirtations were comments that I was too young and too inexperienced to deal with at the time, and I too received a very low grade in his class even though I did well in all my exams. I am happy for social media as at least now these stories can see the light of day. Dina pointed out that regardless of the number of tools that get created a voiceless woman remains voiceless as long she has to pay the price.

On a positive note, a few participants who attended the workshop were touched by Rama’s story. They decided to go to their own universities and try to give back voices to voiceless women by gathering their stories and taking collective action. They are still not sure how to do it, but they have been talking about a few ideas and I know they will find a way. For me, it is positive enough that they are aware of the problem at this age and that they can do something about it now.

Anyway, I found a report on the Internet regarding the prevalence of mistreatment and justice of grading system in five health related faculties in Jordan University of Science and Technology.

The report shares the following results:
• 61% of the students had experienced at least one form of mistreatment
• Perceived mistreatment most often (52%) had taken the form of psychological mistreatment (shouting and humiliation)
• Other forms of mistreatment such as physical harm (32%), mistreatment related to religion (36%), mistreatment related to external appearance (35%), Sexual harassment (33%), Mistreatment related to specialty (29%) were also common

Male students (66%) complain more than female students (56%);
• Perceived mistreatment was exceptionally high among the Israeli Arabs, 83% compared to 59% for the Jordanians and 65% for other non-Jordanian Arabs;
• Many students (66%) believe that grading system in JUST is unfair. Ninety seven percent of the Israeli Arabs did not trust the grading system compared to 64% of the Jordanians and 66% of the non-Jordanian Arabs.