Woman in Arab Society

The Syrian woman today gathers in her person, and in the life she lives, all the ages of history!

The reader — and the woman reader too — may wonder at this statement, but such is the fact!..

For in our society there are women who, in their thinking and their grasp of life's secrets, live the life of the woman of the Stone Age. Others are as though in the first ages of nomadism... Some have never tasted the comforts of civilization nor known its color and its flavor... We might go further and say of some that they are half-civilized... And then, alongside this assortment of women, differing in mentality and inclination, there are women who live the life of elegant Parisiennes, whether in their homes or in society — indeed the Syrian woman may outdo the Parisienne in many respects... By all this I meant to say that the ages of history come together today in the Syrian woman.

And this digression applies exactly to the Arab woman in general...

Thirty years ago or more, the voice of thinkers rose to free the Arab woman from the captivity of ignorance and the bondage of life... These voices found their way to hearts. Woman was permitted to learn: schools were opened, and our Arab girl was able, in not many years, to cast off many of the garments of ignorance, to draw near the horizons of knowledge, and to devour the duties that life imposed upon her... Only a few years passed before this voice rose higher, and woman was able to emancipate herself and to share with man in many intellectual labors and social services. Yet this awakening has touched only a small portion of the nation as a whole... The ignorant still outnumber the educated...

Yes: in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq there are cultivated women who have taken an ample share of secondary and university education, who know all the phenomena of life and have plunged into its thick, equipped with every means that sets them in the ranks of superior men... But beside this small class are many classes wallowing in ignorance... knowing of life only its husks. You could carry them back to the remotest ages of history and find no difference between them and the women of those ages — indeed they may even surpass them in the superstitions they have gathered, deposited in their minds over the generations...

This is what makes social life in the Arab countries half-disjointed... For it is woman who lifts the film from life and raises the family and society to the rank enjoyed by the advanced societies that have received an ample portion of the comforts of civilization and the overflow of culture...

And if I say that woman in the Arab countries is still in her ignorance, I do not mean to say that man has reached the summit of knowledge. Man in our society is still that primitive being who lives in an atmosphere infested with superstitions, arrogance, and ignorance, inclined in his conceptions and ideas toward primitive man, far removed from the truths of knowledge and the secrets of life... Perhaps this deficiency in our social life — I mean the deficiency of the man steeped in ignorance and the woman steeped in superstition — perhaps woman, having received an ample share of education and culture, and having entered society to shake its cracked structure and build upon its ruins a new society marked by knowledge and strength — perhaps the new emancipated woman is the one who will carry Arab society forward with those swift, mighty strides that will make of our flabby society a strong society of a free, idealistic bent...

Yes. Woman — I mean the mother — is the one who will play this great role at the heart of our social being. It is she who will erase those differences that hold minds apart — the minds of women and men alike — nay, it is she who will create for Arab society that new direction which will bring us near the free and abundant life. It is not enough to count in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq hundreds of distinguished ladies who have attained the highest degree of knowledge — what matters is that the Arab woman as a whole reach the same standing that the Danish or the Finnish woman, for example, has reached in the West, in knowledge, in competence, and in understanding the realities of life...

And if, at the beginning of this piece, I alluded to the condition of the Syrian woman in particular and the Arab woman in general, and saw all the ages of history meeting in her person where knowledge is concerned, this does not mean that the woman of tomorrow will be as her grandmother was yesterday and as her mother is today... No... The age of that woman is dying out... Even now I glimpse the spark of light penetrating into woman's breast in every Arab region, and it will not be long before the Arab woman embodies the mentality of the twentieth century in all its aspects — nor will man lag behind woman in this field... I feel from the depths that the Arab woman is on the eve of the birth of a new dawn, and the credit for it will belong to the awakening of the woman who has resolved to walk the road with rapid strides. It is this that brings us near the real, free life whose overflow the living nations enjoy in most regions of the earth.