Women of region tackle solutions to current issues through Jordanian podcast ‘Masaha’

AMMAN — The Jordanian podcasting platform Sowt has recently published a feminism-focused show with support from the Friedricht Ebert Stiftung (FES), and will release its last two episodes in the coming weeks.

The 13-episode podcast is called Masaha, meaning “space” in Arabic. 

“One of our colleagues came up with this song, which is the song of the show, in which one is talking to her lover, saying: ‘I need space, stop playing in the backyard on your own,’” said Mayss Al Alami, who hosts the show and works for Sowt in business development.

“We loved it because it basically said, ‘give women space,’” she told The Jordan Times on Thursday.

The podcast offers a platform for women of different backgrounds from countries across the MENA region to discuss, from a feminist perspective, the strategies and solutions for current economic and social issues facing the region, according to Sowt’s website.

Among the podcast’s featured women are several academics and experts from Jordan, including Wafa Al Khadra, associate professor at the American University of Madaba, Secretary General of the Jordanian National Commission for Women Salma Nims and Sahar Aloul, a member of Al Sadaqa, which is a community organisation campaign that seeks to create a supportive work environment for women, mothers and the working family, according to Al Alami.

 “What is great about Masaha is that it was presenting the issue of feminism from an economic and politically intersectional perspective,” Al Alami noted. 

“It is very exciting to have that be presented in Arabic and include the voices of academics and experts from the region, because this issue is often talked about from an outsider’s perspective or from a Western perspective,” she added.

The podcast platform Sowt “offers Arabic speakers around the world high-quality, on-demand audio content”, according to its website. It was established in 2016 by Hazem and Tareq Zureikat and Ramsey Tesdell.

The platform began to garner attention after publishing its podcast “Eib”, which means “taboo” or “shame” in Arabic and tackles “social issues that a lot of people don’t talk about and don’t usually approach”, Al Alami said.

FES is a non-profit German foundation funded by Germany and “committed to the advancement of both socio-political and economic development in the spirit of social democracy, through civic education, research and international cooperation”, according to its website.