Woman in the World

This is a new page which "The Woman's Voice" adds to its pages. By it, it means to present to the ladies of this country an idea of women's activity in the world, in all its social, intellectual, and educational colors.

Dr. "Doria Shafik," editor-in-chief of "Bint al-Nil," is showing marked activity in the social and literary field, and the news from Egypt has it that Mrs. Doria Shafik has founded a new women's party.

Mrs. Shafik has defined the aims of the new Egyptian woman as follows:

1 — Care for mother and child.

2 — Restriction of divorce, making it conditional on specific circumstances approved by special committees.

3 — Restriction of polygamy to specific circumstances approved by special committees.

4 — Compulsory education for girls, and the opening of the door to them in all colors of technical education.

5 — Woman's political right, attached to no condition.

Mrs. Doria Shafik is about forty years old; she took a licence in literature from the Sorbonne. Ahmad Amin, dean of the Faculty of Arts, refused to admit her to a teaching post because she is beautiful.

The Egyptian woman has begun to go down into the field of journalism with vigor and activity. On the great Egyptian papers there are a number of graduates of the university and the colleges; some supervise the editing and the pictures, and others work in the secretariat.

Mrs. "Marcienne al-Louzi" has joined the editorial staff of the magazine "Akher Sa'a"; she is a French lady married to an Egyptian, a graduate of the Faculty of Law, and the daughter of one of France's great poets, "Ferdinand Herold."

On the magazine "Akher Sa'a" there is also another editor, Miss Khayriyya Khayri, daughter of a former minister. She is a graduate of a school of journalism, and used to work as editorial secretary of the magazine "al-Mukhtar" with Mr. Fouad Sarruf.

From the general secretary of the Fuad I Society of the Egyptian Red Crescent ("Ladies' Branch"), Miss Nadir Sabbour, we have received a letter explaining to us the great works this society has performed during the past few years in the social field. Among them: combating the malaria epidemic in Upper Egypt, which spread in 1944, and the epidemic of relapsing fever in 1945. The Egyptian government appreciated this merit and bestowed decorations and medals upon many of the ladies of the Red Crescent.

In the middle of 1945, when the committee was informed of the French aggression against the Syrian and Lebanese peoples, a mission of ladies traveled to Syria and Lebanon supplied with clothing and medical equipment. The society was also very active in combating the cholera epidemic, just as it showed great activity in aiding the Egyptian army in Palestine. Miss Nadir Sabbour, besides her work in the Egyptian Red Crescent, works in certain other societies, such as the New Woman Society, which undertakes the education of poor girls. Miss Sabbour enclosed with her letter a photograph of the ladies of the Red Crescent, and a social article of much literary boldness, written especially for this special issue of "The Woman's Voice," which readers will find elsewhere in this issue.

The magazine "The Mother and the Child," published by the Child Protection Society in Iraq, continues its national mission of guiding Iraqi women's society in a sound direction of deep reach, and it perseveres in the performance of this mission with much awareness and knowledge.

The subjects which "The Mother and the Child" treats, by various men and women writers, touch genuinely upon the life of childhood and motherhood. Its latest issue was full of excellent subjects — scientific articles, artistic articles, health articles, and stories — and there is no doubt that the committee supervising this magazine will continue its humane mission of carrying this voice, the woman's voice, high in every part of the Arab lands, and especially the voice of motherhood, which creates the new generations. "The Mother and the Child" is supervised by a committee of Iraq's noble ladies, who are: Mrs. Ismat Sabah al-Sayyid, Mrs. Ma'ida Haydari Mahmud, Miss Bahiya Farajallah (the reader will find an article by her in The Woman's Voice), and Mrs. Almas Kina.

A new women's magazine has appeared in Baghdad, "Bint al-Rashid," whose proprietor and editor-in-chief is Miss Durra Abd al-Wahhab.

It is a literary, social, and artistic magazine appearing twice a month. The fourth issue of this magazine has reached us, containing a number of subjects of interest to woman; a band of ladies in the sister country took part in editing it.

To "Bint al-Rashid" in Iraq, "The Woman's Voice" in Lebanon wishes steady progress and success.

Miss "Nazik al-Malaika" is a poetess rich in feeling. About a year ago she brought out her collection of verse, "Lover of the Night," the first collection the poetess has published.

She is also preparing a verse epic of one thousand two hundred lines entitled "The Tragedy of Life," and another collection whose poems were composed after "Lover of the Night."

Her first collection found favor with the critics and poets of the Arab world.

Miss Nazik intends to travel soon to England, to pursue in its great universities the study of English literature; she is working for a doctorate in letters.

There is no doubt that the poetess's presence in the land of the great Shakespeare will allow her imagination to soar in spacious airs.

Mrs. Widad Sakakini is counted among the active women of letters of Syria. She has an abundant production of stories and studies. The latest work the writer Sakakini has produced is the story "Arwa Bint al-Khutub," a tale whose events took place in Damascus a thousand years ago. She has brought it out in an elegant style, and in a dress more elegant still.

Margaret Truman, daughter of President Truman, has caused an economic crisis in the United States.

Government circles were taken by surprise by a grave statement published by the Daily Express in London and attributed to Margaret Truman, in which the first young lady of the United States says that she has decided not to eat potatoes from this day forward, so that her weight may not increase.

America's potato growers and exporters rose up in arms at this statement, and Mrs. Mildred Dober, the potato queen of America, promptly sent a telegram to the White House asking whether the statement attributed to Margaret Truman was true. The White House was obliged to issue an official statement in Margaret Truman's own words, in which she said:

What has been attributed to me is not true; I have never for a single day stopped eating potatoes.

The Albanian radio keeps pressing the Yugoslav women, urging them to undertake a bloody struggle to do away with Marshal Tito.

This appeal was sent out on the occasion of International Women's Day, and it was delivered over the Tirana radio by Pera Ivanović, president of the High Court of Justice in Montenegro, who had fled from Yugoslavia after the split between Tito and the Cominform.

In 1916 the literary queen of Romania, Elisabeth, wife of Carol I, died. She was famous under the name of Carmen Sylva, and the literary queen was buried beside a small river which she had mentioned in many of her works. The peasants of that region always made it their custom to scatter roses on the literary queen's grave on every occasion.

But Ana Pauker, Romania's minister, decided for some reason that the memory of Carmen Sylva, former queen of Romania, did not deserve to occupy the minds of the people of Romania to this extent, and so she ordered her bones taken out of her grave and burned. And after the burning was done, she ordered the ashes that were left of her strewn in the river, believing that she had thereby wiped out her memory forever from the minds and hearts of the Romanians.

But when the time came for the observance of the anniversary of the literary queen's death, many of the inhabitants of Romania gathered on the riverbank at the spot where the queen's ashes had been cast, and there they threw their bouquets of flowers and roses.