Mohammed Qadah Screenshot - Courtesy of AJ Video
CAIRO - 8 July 2017: After the releasing a video on Facebook heavily criticizing women, Jordanian TV personality Mohammed Qadah's TV show has been suspended.
Qadah aggressively attacked the way women dress, referring to them as "fat cows" and "ugly.” The Josat TV channel host stated that a woman wearing less clothing is the only way they can attract men and this promotes sexual harassment, rape, and adultery.
Qadah also said, "If I want to go beat her, they will say that is harassment and intrusion."
Although he received many attacks for his inappropriate and degrading comments about women on Twitter, Facebook and other journalists, Qadah represents a large segment of Arab men who believe that women's dress should abide by religious standards.
It has been well documented that many men believe women are to blame for rape, sexual assault and harassment. Qadah’s recent social media rant is a perfect representation of this negative thinking about women.
Instead of using his status as a public figure to influence society by promoting gender equality and women empowerment, Qadah used his voice to insult and demean women.
The problem begins when instead of promoting positivity and drawing attention to issues that negatively impact our society, he directs his energy to encourage men to "cover their women" and "beat them" destroying any evidence of having a progressive society.
By explicitly referring to women as cows he implies that women are animals and therefore worthy of any objectification, whether it sexual or other means, because they are not considered as equal to their male counterparts.
Gender equality remains to be one of women's biggest struggles across the globe and the Arab world is no exception. In Saudi Arabia, women are denied many of the basic human rights without the supervision of men.
In Egypt, a 2013 UN report highlighted that 99.3 percent of women have been subjected to harassment, but only 6.6 percent of them have sought help from the police. The same report indicated that 51.6 percent of men have admitted to harassing women.
A report by The Guardian revealed that more than half of the Egyptian men surveyed agreed that “there are times when a woman deserves to be beaten.”
Rula Hroub, one of the owners of Josat, expressed her outrage about Qadah's video and confirmed that "Qadah’s weekly program has been suspended until further notice."
Rakan Saaideh, President of the Jordan Press Association (JPA), expressed his dissatisfaction with Qadah’s video stating, “It is an insult to Jordanian women and contradicts the codes and ethics of the profession. I could not finish watching the clip because it was horrible.”
He added that since Qadah is not a member of the JPA they are incapable of taking actions against him. “Any action taken against Qadah will be handled by the Cyber Crime Unit (CCU)… the CCU is following up on the issue and studying it legally,” a government official told The Jordan Times.
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