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| Nadia Ahmad at the wheel of her taxi [Abed al-Qaisi/Al Jazeera] |
It
is something we discussed with friends during my stay in the Occupied West Bank
town of Beit Jala last month. Everyone was curious to hear about Dubai and its
progress. Among other topics, we spoke of the city’s pink taxis driven by
women. So it was a very pleasant surprise when I spotted this news item on Al
Jazeera, especially considering the very volatile situation in Hebron where
Palestinians are subjected to constant harassment by Israeli settlers.
Khalal
and Qaisi write:
Nadia
Ahmad prefers to drive in manual. She laughs, motioning with one hand as if she
is changing gears while the other one rests on an imaginary wheel.
Ahmad
has been preoccupied with cars since she was a young girl, but she never
thought she would end up making a living out of her love for being behind the
wheel.
For
the past two years, Ahmad has been driving a taxi through the streets of Hebron.
While
she never planned to make a political statement with her career, there is no
getting around it: Ahmad is believed to be the only female taxi driver in
all of Palestine.
Her
floral-printed mauve headscarf and long black abaya stand out among the rows of
bare male elbows poking out of the drivers' windows in the bustling city of
Hebron.
She
says her husband, a professor of information technology at a local university,
never challenged her dream of driving a taxi -- but many others in the
community were not as open to her unusual job choice.
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| Nadia Ahmad shows off her driving license [Abed al-Qaisi/Al Jazeera] |
Ahmad
stopped driving for several months after that, but her husband urged her to
continue.
Nahid
Abu Taima, who teaches a course on feminism in the media at Birzeit University,
told Al Jazeera that women like Ahmad are trailblazers in Palestine, paving the
way for an equal society.
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| Madeleine Kulab, 16, Gaza's only fisherwoman |
For
Palestinian women to break out of the gendered roles in society, Abu Taima
says they will have to be prepared for the same kind of backlash and community
gossip to which Ahmad was initially subjected.
"Eventually,
though, people will start to understand that there is no problem with what she
is doing," Abu Taima said.
Ahmad
became interested in cars at a young age -- but even then, she understood that
it was not considered a "normal" interest for a girl.
She
watched her cousins work on their engines when she was a teenager -- never
asking questions, but taking mental notes instead.
"I
can work on my own car [now]. I watched and watched, [and] now I know about
cars. I can take even apart the carburetor," Ahmad said.
Ahmad's
daughter, who is married and lives in neighboring Jordan, has followed in her
mother's footsteps by obtaining a taxi driver's license as well -=- though she
has not yet started driving professionally.
The
support Ahmad has received from her family has pushed her to think of her
career in a bigger way. She now
wants to start her own business, and within the next few years, she hopes to
run a small fleet of taxis driven by women, for women.
"The
cars will be neon green," she said. "I want to distinguish the
all-women taxis from the mainstream ones." [Those are yellow.]
If
her idea comes to fruition, customers would be able to request taxis by phone,
so women would not have to flag down their ride on the side of the
street. She also plans to provide car seats for
children upon request, an option not available to women taking mainstream
taxis.
So
far, Ahmad has encouraged six other women to acquire government-issued taxi
licenses. While all six have passed their test and are now licensed taxi
drivers, they said family pressure has kept them from proceeding further.
Still, Ahmad remains confident they
will eventually agree to join her fleet.
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| ADWAR's Sahar al-Kawasmeh, [Abed al-Qaisi/Al Jazeera] |
"When
she gets a few more women on board with her idea, we can start an ADWAR project
for her business and begin fundraising," Kawasmeh said.
Earlier
this year, Ahmad submitted her application for a business license, along with
her business pitch, to the Palestinian Ministry of Transportation to gauge the
viability of her entrepreneurial plans.
A ministry representative from told Al
Jazeera that as long as Ahmad was able to meet all the requirements of any new
taxi company -- including office space, insurance, licensed cars and drivers,
and start-up cash -- she would be allowed to open.
"We do not discriminate upon
gender," the representative, who did not provide his name, told Al
Jazeera. "Man, woman, whatever -- there are standard procedural steps that
have to be taken, that's all."
