Growing up in Jordan, the violence against women was inescapable. I would listen to female friends discuss the abuse they faced from their partners and relatives, and would hear stories of women attacked on the street. Each new story poured fuel onto a fire of anger that had been growing within me.
By 2010 this fire had grown so big that I could no longer ignore it. My childhood dream was to compete in the Olympics, and I had won 20 national and international gold medals in martial arts. But I made the decision to abandon my career with the Jordanian Taekwondo team to create SheFighter—the first female-only self-defence academy in Jordan.
SheFighter is my way of fighting back against a patriarchal society that silences female voices, limits female agency, and all too often accepts gender-based violence as the norm.
In 2010, I decided to teach my first self-defence class. My parents' basement in Amman became a makeshift studio, and a pair of close friends were my first students. These sessions were hosted at night and held discreetly—we knew that the public reaction to SheFighter could bring it to an end long before it would ever have the chance to properly begin.
But after a few months, the positive feedback from the circle of women I had taught persuaded me to invest all the money I had into a small room in Amman. This room became the first self-defence studio—a public declaration that I was serious about empowering women through self-defence and wanted to expand my reach further.
Once we started to grow in popularity, I faced opposition from groups within society that were threatened by what we represented. I was subjected to legal battles, insults, and countless threats to my personal safety, but what gave me the strength to continue was a memory from my childhood—my mum taking me back and forth from Taekwondo.
You must understand that extra-curricular sports had little importance in Jordan in the '90s—even less so if you were a girl. Despite this, my mum always insisted on taking me to Taekwondo lessons three times a week from the age of five.
I think my mum knew that Taekwondo would instil within me the discipline and self-respect that has taken me to where I am now, and her dedication to ensuring that her daughter got to and from those lessons safely became an example of discipline and perseverance that inspired me in 2012 and continues to inspire me now.
It was that memory of my mum that gave me comfort when we were under threat of being shut down. Her vigilance taught me an important lesson—If you want to inspire others, then you must lead by example. This is what SheFighter became—an example of female empowerment that started off in a basement in Jordan and is now taught by 700 trained instructors, reaching over 30,000 people.
I am proud to say that SheFighter is a source of inspiration that has grown far beyond me and now stretches its influence out over 30 countries. America is next, and I know it will bring further opportunities.
My aim was never to make money or gain fame, but to provide a platform where other women can see what it means to take agency and then become this example themselves.
Maybe then the moments that will summarise my life are the moments I don't always get to see. The smiles between two women in a self defense class, the nods of understanding when I connect with an audience on stage—these are the moments that unite people and inspire others to take action. They are the moments I want to be known by.
Lina Khalifeh (they/them) is a social entrepreneur and One Young World Ambassador who founded SheFighter, an NGO dedicated to empowering women through self-defence.
Lina's work has been recognised by Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. They have spoken at the United Nations and European Parliament about combating violence against women. Their pioneering work continues to transform lives by providing women with physical skills and mental strength to defend themselves.
All views expressed are the author's own.
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