Written by Nadine Toukan.

In an effort to place women’s issues on the government agenda and confidently claim it, the recent cabinet change includes a tag to the Ministry of Social Development, evolving it to Social Development & Women’s Affairs.

A banner devoid of dignity. No evolution there.

A sorry regression. Feeds into the problem. Insults half the population directly and insults the other half indirectly. Grows dependency on a quota mentality, everywhere. Lends to further gender stereotyping.

What is it about the gender conversation that makes the system so confused that we lose wisdom?

How can anyone justify that the wide range of topics that women’s affairs may encompass belong in a corner inside the Ministry of Social Development? Does this mean that men’s affairs do not belong within this ministry? Or is the role of women shadowed within social development only? Are there no men’s affairs we ought to be concerned about? What is the definition of women’s affairs anyway? Are women’s affairs not society’s affairs?

How did we decide to rescind an entire gender, half the population, to an after thought?

And no, the thing that we absolutely must not do is create a stand alone Ministry of Women’s Affairs either. That would be an even bigger disaster in a century when we know better because of experience.

The gender conversation specific to women is a topic of humanity. Gender stereotyping is a crisis of humanity. It is not a women’s issue. It is neither created nor solved in a gated environment outside of the ecosystem. It cannot be a segregated view.

As long as women are siloed and placed under the social development banner, violence against women will continue. Respect towards women will diminish. The self confidence of women will not be nurtured. The image of women will not be equal. And in a world full of misunderstanding, the rifts will only grow wider. In turn, men will become more broken, societal frustrations will fester, the workplace him and her attitudes will become more prejudiced, respect in the streets will wane, education will fail to fix things, and family and community units will further disintegrate. We must reframe the conversation on sex and gender. It is broken.

Dear government, either become part of the solution or get out of the way completely.

We need to rewire our entire system within every building, street, hallway, book and screen towards a healthy reality of gender cohesion. We cannot do so with sexist, gender biased banners and after thoughts that label half a population and concern the entire.

What Jordan needs now is a dialog of respect. We must seek to be enlightened. We must work towards integration. We must nurture capacities that collaborate and complement each other. We must value and credit on merit. We must raise the bar of ethics, human ethics, so as to weave a safer social net for all. We must affirm human dignity.