The Lebanese Woman and Higher Education

When the American University of Beirut opened its higher departments to women, and the first woman physician graduated from it in 1931, a few adventurous Lebanese women had already preceded her in studying medicine outside Lebanon. The first of them was Dr. Anis Barakat Baz, wife of Mr. George Baz, the champion of woman. At the same time her sister, Mrs. Zahiya Barakat, had obtained the degree in pharmacy from one of the universities of the United States, and Dr. Saniyya Habbub Naqqash followed them in obtaining the degree in medicine from another university in the United States.

The graduation of Dr. Edma Abouchdid in 1931 from the American University was an event of real importance, because she was the first woman physician to graduate in Lebanon, and because her obtaining the degree was the opening of a new era for the Lebanese woman and the first link in a chain of women students and graduates of medicine, pharmacy, and law at the American and French universities.

Between 1931 and 1944 there graduated from the American University nine Lebanese women physicians, two women dentists, and one woman pharmacist. (1)

What we observe is that their entry into the liberal professions moves slowly and at one unchanging rate; that their inclination toward the profession of pharmacy falls below their inclination toward medicine and law; while we do not find among them a single woman engineer.

All the women physicians practice the profession, whether single or married, except one whom household tasks occupy part of the time — yet they do not prevent her from carrying out the duties of the post of physician to one of the girls' schools.

As for the women lawyers, the first of them was Blanche Amoun, who practiced the profession for a while and then withdrew from it. Three(?) others practice it in Beirut at the present time, while the rest have taken up cultural occupations and have severed their connection with the law.

I asked one of these, a young lawyer: Why did you study law? She said: "My father pushed me into the study because he was not blessed with a boy to whom he could teach the profession he loves." I said: "And to what are you yourself inclined?" She said: "To sports and driving the car."

But I do not doubt that most women students of law study this subject out of ambition and the desire for cultivation and personal growth, and to practice the profession of speech and advocacy, in which many of them excel.

Alongside the liberal professions, some graduates of the secondary institutes turn to the pursuit of non-professional higher learning in the universities, such as specializing in certain branches of science or letters and obtaining academic degrees at the rank of the licence or the doctorate. As for the difference between the two kinds of specialization, it is that professional education is closer to earning and material profit, whereas non-professional specialization is pure study and deep penetration into a limited subject, qualifying its possessor to devote himself to writing and to pure scientific research. This kind of study is no less important than professional study — if it is not of greater importance — for the growth of knowledge and the encouragement of cultural production in the country.

Dr. Najla Izzeddin was the first Lebanese girl to hold the doctorate degree, from the University of Chicago in America, specializing in historical research; she served the Palestine question with her lectures and studies as a member of the Arab Office in Washington, and wrote a book on the subject. She was followed by a number of women specialists at the two universities of Beirut (2), some in the natural sciences and others in letters and history. Some completed their studies outside Lebanon — I mention in particular Dr. Salwa Nassar, who spent six years in the universities of America specializing in one of the branches of physics, and who practiced teaching there after obtaining the doctorate.

Yet the field of work before these women is still narrow, despite their small number. She who specializes in a subject is rarely given the chance to pursue investigation and writing in it, for lack of institutes of scientific research in our country; so she is forced to earn her living by teaching or otherwise, letting the subject of her specialization slip from mind and returning to it only at rare moments.

(1) We were unable to obtain the statistics of the French University.
(2) Eight women graduates hold M.A. degrees from the American University of Beirut; they hold the licence degree in chemistry, and from the French University.

And after all, the activity of woman in our country is not to be measured only by the number of those who practice the liberal professions or obtain academic degrees and ranks, but by the number of those who work outside their homes in factories, institutes, and all the other spheres of work — especially in the occupations that call for woman's work, such as teaching, nursing, office work, social work, school administration, nursery care, the women's press, health affairs, and the raising of the literary level. It becomes clear to us that the number of women is increasing steadily in the schools, factories, hospitals, and offices, and that our need for women specialists in the subjects I have enumerated is still acute — indeed, it is more acute than our want of women of higher learning, because the doors of work stand wider open before that group, and the need for them is more evident and more pressing.