The rise of the female scuba diver in Jordan

From there we headed to the Seven Sisters site, so named for the multiple bommies (outcrops of coral) that rise up off the ocean floor, where yellow and white butterflyfish elegantly swished passed our goggles, and the electric blue of a damselfish darted between shoals of striped fusiliers as they fanned around the towering underwater pillars.

As we moved through the water, I thought about how few female dive instructors I’ve actually met around the world. According to PADI, the activity is still very much dominated by men: globally, of the 128,000 instructors globally, just 20% of instructors (at all levels) are currently female. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa the number sinks – to around 16% – and in predominately Muslim countries, that figure plummets further, with less than 10% in the countries of Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE.

When I asked PADI if the numbers look to be increasing, they said that due to the Covid pandemic it was hard to answer clearly, but did agree that “in general, there is opportunity to grow the female ranks of PADI Professionals – and demand for female PADI Pros worldwide”.

The organisation has started to promote women working in their world, particularly in places where they are not encouraged to be as active in the outdoors, such as the Middle East. They have launched an AmbassaDiver programme where they use their website and social media channels to tell the stories of these women breaking the mould. These include Master Scuba Diver Trainer Nouf Alosaimi from Saudi Arabia – the first Saudi female technical diver, who founded Pink Bubbles Divers (a female diving community that encourages women to connect with the ocean); and Ehdaa Al-Barwani who is the first female PADI instructor from Oman and runs women-only dive courses.

One thing is for certain, the number of women divers in Jordan has increased since Wa’ed joined Go Aqaba in 2018. According to Khaled, there are now five of them teaching scuba diving in Aqaba, and they’ve seen a rise in female customers too.