Research and Tying Up Loose Ends

This last month in Jordan has been completely free of classes and structured events. But we all have to conduct an individual study project (ISP) which is full blown research and I've never done full blown research! I'm used to short research papers that take about a week and require reading a few articles. And I much prefer reading other people's brilliant ideas opposed to coming up with my own. I suppose I tend to second guess myself and how much I have to offer in terms of new ideas and innovative thinking- I feel like its all been done before.
The full title of my research project (just finished within the last 6 hours) is Addressing Women's Issues: A Portriat of the Jordanian National Commission for Women and Ministry Gender Divisions. I know this topic may not appeal to everyone so bear with my rant...this is something I'm passionate about! Women in Jordan experience a far amount of inequality and discrimination. Granted it’s not as bad as some 3rd world countries but its not as good as the US (but the US has its own gender issues that still exist). Jordan is in the middle in terms of women's empowerment. For example, the parliament requires that 6 women be included in government but women are not actively being elected by the Jordanian public, they're just appointed by the King. There are no Hillary Clintons, Sarah Palins, Condeleezza Rices here. A woman with a Masters degree will only be permitted to do the same job as a man with an Undergrad degree and there is little job mobility for women even if they're educated. You can get fired if you get pregnant because companies don't want to pay for maternity leave. Women are still having 5-8 children, one child a year because many traditional communities emphasize that a women's sole purpose is in the home and caring for a family. So Jordan as a modernizing country working towards democracy has acknowledged that these trends and practices are wrong. One thing that makes this whole situation more challenging is that 85% of Jordanian laws treat men and women equally. Equality is enacted in the government but it hasn't trickled down to the community based level. Social traditions are still the norm despite laws and policies. My research is based on how the government and NGOs are approaching these issues and attempting to fix them. NGOs are always the obvious way to go when addressing any kind of social change. And the JNCW is a strong organization that is tackling a lot of projects to help women. One of their main programs is to go into rural areas and having conferences encouraging women to run for election- how to run a campaign, addressing the media, how to act in Parliament. There are so many little cultural limitations. For example, even if a women is elected and there's a meeting in Parliament, she's not suppose to raise her voice when talking about her issues or platform. The JNCW encourages women to be assertive and yell if they need to even if it goes against the norm.
Many of the Ministries in Jordan have a gender division- the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Labor, etc. Gender divisions are the government's way of pin pointing women's issues in specific areas such as education and labor. The Ministry of Labor for example is running programs to encourage women to generate their own income so that they are not so dependent on men and possibly tied into abusive relationships because of a lack of income. These divisions are all running great programs but they are often put on the back burner and not considered a priority in the whole scheme of things.
Overall, both NGOs and the Ministry gender divisions are limited by funding and social traditions. A program may be run in a rural area but it is not successful because it goes against the social norms. So this means the issues have to be broken down to a micro, community based level which is even more challenging. My overall recommendations for these organizations was to break down their work to a community based level or grassroots that really gets down and dirty with small communities and their (mis)perceptions of the role of women in Jordanian society. As always, this is much easier said than done but in my opinion this is really the way you change the world. The government can only do so much in terms of laws and policy making. To really change negative traditions you need to connect and relate to small, local communities. From personal experience, this is the most frustrating way to go about change but also the most rewarding when everything pans out.
Thank you for listening to my rant, ana khulas (I'm done). If anyone would like to read my whole research paper please let me know, I'd be more than happy to share it with you!