Do You Agree to Giving Women the Right to Vote??

Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush

Woman in Lebanon still has many stages before her prior to demanding the vote. Her culture is still deficient and superficial, and nothing will raise its level except raising the level of the government schools, so that the various classes of the people may benefit, and so that woman may understand that she is to undertake the exercise of her political rights only in order to serve her first mission — namely, preserving the integrity of the home and the family. In the light of this truth, woman in Lebanon has the right to exercise her political rights in full; but this will come about only when woman has become enlightened, aware, and sure of herself. I do not want her to exercise her political rights now, while she is poorly equipped, and so swerve from performing her first mission and err where man has erred!

When women lawyers plead the causes of women and children;
and when the specialists in women's diseases and children's diseases are women doctors;
and when the educated woman has entered the administrative departments and taken over the responsible posts in the municipalities, the Ministry of Health, and public relief — then woman will have the right to demand her political rights in full, and she will have imposed her position on man and on society.

2 — Mrs. Salma al-Haffar al-Kuzbari

In Syria today, as in every Arab country, there is an elite of ladies who could shoulder the burdens of political work. As for me, I believe the suitable time has not yet come for the Syrian woman to take part in exercising political rights, or to demand these rights with violent, heated insistence. Woman must first prove that her culture has reached the fitting stage that qualifies her to carry these burdens. All the Syrian woman need do now is strive to achieve that, and wait until the number of educated women is sufficient, so that a select class can be formed, highly cultured, able to express its views well in its national tongue first and in at least one foreign language. And I believe our wait will not be long...

3 — Miss Zahia Kaddoura

No. The Lebanese woman today is not, in general, prepared to exercise her political rights in full, and that for the following reasons:

1 — The internal political situation in Lebanon is chaotic; because of it, voting ought to be restricted to the educated class of men — not that all of us women should be brought in and so make bad matters worse, multiplying disorder and confusion and committing the many errors that men commit today.

2 — In Lebanon there are ladies who, as individuals, are outstanding and equal to all the rights that the cultured, aware man exercises; but our women as a whole are still, at bottom, in the state of ignorant illiteracy that drifts with the current and embraces no sound national creed.

3 — Religious and doctrinal differences are many in Lebanon; they leave us in a state of disunity and of little confidence in ourselves and in our neighbors — and all these work to weaken the national spirit which must always be the basis of our exercise of political rights.

When the Lebanese woman has worked to fulfill her first mission in life — purging every moral disintegration, unifying national creeds, and killing sectarian rancors — then she may demand her political rights, and then she may exercise them with awareness, and not err where man has erred...

...among the women of Egypt's renaissance and among the leaders of the literary and social movement. The two of them agree in opinion in answer to this question, and this is their answer:

The Egyptian woman is fully worthy of entering Parliament, given the necessity of equality at the present time. Voting means only choosing the right person to carry out his national tasks in the best way. This choice requires neither culture nor wide learning, but only a measure of discernment and national consciousness, and both exist in Egypt among men and women alike. Events have proved that in every national movement that arose in the country and redounded to its benefit, woman bore her share on an equal footing with man.

As for entering Parliament, that will naturally not be for every woman, but for the educated women holding certain scientific qualifications equal to man's; such women stand on a par with the members of Parliament and surpass a good number of them. And we believe with full conviction that the Egyptian woman will bring her country the greatest benefit by entering Parliament, which will enable her to call for reform in the family and in society.

The nature of Lebanon closely resembles the nature of Switzerland — the one as an Eastern land, the other as a Western one. The Swiss woman has not yet obtained equality of rights with man, nor has she exercised her political rights, and this by her own wish and her orientation in life. As for the Lebanese woman, although she is less advanced than the Swiss, she has a native intelligence that distinguishes her to some degree; but she lacks knowledge and the development of an independent personality of her own, such as modern world civilization requires.

The Lebanese woman is cheated of her rights — in law, in tradition, and in society — although the Arab woman of old had a past worthy of imitation!

In my opinion it would be well for woman in Lebanon to be given her political rights, as an encouragement to her, that she may complete the development of her personality in society, and undertake — she and man together, side by side — the mending of national and social problems, in pursuit of a sounder future!...

In Iraq today, as in every other Arab country, there are two classes of women: the educated and the ignorant. The educated woman is at a degree of maturity and understanding no less than man's. She is supported by men, especially by the upper class among them. This educated woman feels what the ignorant one suffers of pains and injustice in her rights, and is more capable of helping her than man is; for man does not have the experience needed to go deep into and understand the mind of the suffering woman, to study her problems, and to work to raise her level and lift her out of misery and wretchedness. By entering Parliament she can, better than man, secure the demand for these rights, and the relief of her ignorant sister.