‘Male-centric’ census ad draws flak

AMMAN — Activists on Monday criticised the government for using only masculine nouns in Arabic to address Jordanians and residents in advertisements encouraging them to cooperate with census takers.

In the ads, the government highlighted the significance of the census in “contributing to the advancement and prosperity of Jordan”.

“The ad took us by surprise. The Department of Statistics was supposed to have been receiving funds to take gender into account. The language of the address is considered exclusionary to women,” said gender expert, Randa Naffa.

Moreover, she added that such an occurrence means that “women’s causes are not taken seriously.”

“When there are certain gains from women, such as paying taxes, they are treated equally as men, but when it comes to a significant issue like the census, they are marginalised,” Naffa told The Jordan Times, adding that the way women are addressed says a lot about how they are deemed.

“It is a matter of culture. We have to start with the basic things, like how we address women,” she said.

Jordanian National Commission for Women (JNCW) Secretary General Salma Nims also voiced her disappointment over the ad, saying that the promotional campaign tied to the census was “not properly studied nor directed to women as one of the main components of the census”.

“The number of women, the families they head, and their social situation are the most important components of population censuses. How come a national survey targeting citizens, residents and visitors fails to address women?” 

She said the JNCW and other related organisations should have been engaged in promoting the census and its importance.

Moreover, the advertisement linked cooperating with census takers with religion, saying that it is a “religious obligation to take part in the census”, she noted.

“Religion should not be used in this way. It is citizenship that we need to focus on. This message is also inappropriate for residents and visitors to the country,” Nims said.

Social media users in Jordan criticised the language and content of the ad, saying that excluding women and citing the census as a religious duty make it a failure.