‘But you are a girl’: Iraqi furniture-maker carves up stereotypes
4 min readBy AFP
BAGHDAD: With hammer and noticed, Nour al-Janabi is constructing her newest creation, a candy-pink couch, within the carpentry workshop she runs in male-dominated and conservative Iraq.
“At the start, relatives criticised me,” mentioned the 29-year-old carpenter and furnishings maker, who can be a mom of 4.
“They would say: ‘But you’re a woman… You’re an amateur… It’s a men’s trade’.”
Covered in velvet or imitation leather-based, the sofas and armchairs that she designs makes and mends in her south Baghdad workshop go from rustic type to Louis XV.
Her order e book is full, with new lounges beginning at a cool 700,000 dinars (round $480).
Janabi has been making furnishings for a number of years and launched her enterprise, Nour Carpentry, a number of months in the past. She just lately moved operations from her residence to a home turned workshop, the place she has 4 staff — certainly one of them her retired husband.
“But it’s not right to say it like that,” she mentioned with an embarrassed smile, her hijab overlaying her hair.
In oil-rich Iraq, girls make up simply 13.3 per cent of the labour drive, in line with the World Bank, whereas the World Economic Forum ranked the nation 154 out of 156 in its newest Global Gender Gap Report.
A examine revealed final 12 months by two UN businesses famous that whereas most Iraqis take into account tertiary training equally vital for women and men, “attitudes toward equal rights in employment are discriminatory against women”.
‘You make Iraq proud’
Janabi attributes her success largely to do-it-yourself tutorials that she first posted on Facebook to share her ardour for carpentry and furniture-making.
She uploads movies — about every part from re-stuff an previous couch to utilizing a sander — to TikTok and Instagram too, the place she has greater than 94,000 followers.
“I am the first Iraqi woman to do this trade and break the barrier in this field,” she claimed, in a rustic nonetheless largely dominated by conservative attitudes about girls’s position in society, and the place these perceived as too impartial are generally even thought of immoral.
She mentioned she receives feedback from ladies and men telling her: “You make Iraq proud and you have accomplished something.”
“May God give you strength and health!” one person commented on a video of Janabi presenting a settee embellished with a floral sample.
One of her shoppers, Abu Sajjad, dropped by to see how his couch repairs have been going — untroubled by prejudices some others may harbour in opposition to coping with a feminine carpenter and enterprise proprietor.
Most working girls in Iraq are lecturers or nurses, although a small quantity have entered the police or armed forces.
One of them is Angham al-Tamimi, who this 12 months turned the primary girl military basic.
In a video broadcast by the army’s press service, she mentioned she had “faced the non-acceptance of women in the military”.
But she mentioned she had succeeded because of her “persistence” and “passion”.
BAGHDAD: With hammer and noticed, Nour al-Janabi is constructing her newest creation, a candy-pink couch, within the carpentry workshop she runs in male-dominated and conservative Iraq.
“At the start, relatives criticised me,” mentioned the 29-year-old carpenter and furnishings maker, who can be a mom of 4.
“They would say: ‘But you’re a woman… You’re an amateur… It’s a men’s trade’.”
Covered in velvet or imitation leather-based, the sofas and armchairs that she designs makes and mends in her south Baghdad workshop go from rustic type to Louis XV.
Her order e book is full, with new lounges beginning at a cool 700,000 dinars (round $480).
Janabi has been making furnishings for a number of years and launched her enterprise, Nour Carpentry, a number of months in the past. She just lately moved operations from her residence to a home turned workshop, the place she has 4 staff — certainly one of them her retired husband.
“But it’s not right to say it like that,” she mentioned with an embarrassed smile, her hijab overlaying her hair.
In oil-rich Iraq, girls make up simply 13.3 per cent of the labour drive, in line with the World Bank, whereas the World Economic Forum ranked the nation 154 out of 156 in its newest Global Gender Gap Report.
A examine revealed final 12 months by two UN businesses famous that whereas most Iraqis take into account tertiary training equally vital for women and men, “attitudes toward equal rights in employment are discriminatory against women”.
‘You make Iraq proud’
Janabi attributes her success largely to do-it-yourself tutorials that she first posted on Facebook to share her ardour for carpentry and furniture-making.
She uploads movies — about every part from re-stuff an previous couch to utilizing a sander — to TikTok and Instagram too, the place she has greater than 94,000 followers.
“I am the first Iraqi woman to do this trade and break the barrier in this field,” she claimed, in a rustic nonetheless largely dominated by conservative attitudes about girls’s position in society, and the place these perceived as too impartial are generally even thought of immoral.
She mentioned she receives feedback from ladies and men telling her: “You make Iraq proud and you have accomplished something.”
“May God give you strength and health!” one person commented on a video of Janabi presenting a settee embellished with a floral sample.
One of her shoppers, Abu Sajjad, dropped by to see how his couch repairs have been going — untroubled by prejudices some others may harbour in opposition to coping with a feminine carpenter and enterprise proprietor.
Most working girls in Iraq are lecturers or nurses, although a small quantity have entered the police or armed forces.
One of them is Angham al-Tamimi, who this 12 months turned the primary girl military basic.
In a video broadcast by the army’s press service, she mentioned she had “faced the non-acceptance of women in the military”.
But she mentioned she had succeeded because of her “persistence” and “passion”.
