Arab Women Can Exceed Society’s Expectations of Them

September 10, 2012

By Soukaina Rahioui
I come from a very conservative family. Some of my family members believe that marriage should be the only option for a young girl. They don’t believe that girls should travel alone, choose their own friends or live alone as a single working woman.

Boys tend to get more opportunities to mature, develop and make progress in their lives. They believe that boys are stronger and better than girls.

I am fortunate that I’ve defied some of my family’s values. My parents supported and encouraged my education. I graduated from high school and now I’m studying journalism at Mohammed Ben Abdellah University in Fes. Inshallah, I will be graduating next year.

I am very fortunate to be participating in GlobalGirl Media, a program which is helping me pursue my dream of becoming a journalist. I am one of 12 girls from all across Morocco participating in two-week training in Rabat this week. We are learning to blog, write stories and shoot and edit videos. We are working in teams, reporting stories about women’s issues.

My team is working on two stories. We are doing a story on women who work in bars and a profile of a female artist in the Medina.

I am interested in journalism because I want to show my creativity and ability to work in a man’s world.  In the Arab world, women take on a huge responsibility when they accept the traditions that their society imposes on them. When they do that, they are not realizing their full potential.

Progressive women in the Arab world have demonstrated that women have a lot more to offer than what their society expects of them. They should not sit on the sidelines and let the society dictate what they can and cannot do.