On the Road to Equality

Women's Week

It is a week for which the Lebanese Women's League prepared the way, inviting the brilliant lawyer Mr. Salah Labaki to deliver a public pleading on behalf of the Lebanese woman and the legitimacy of her demand for equality with man in civil rights.

Mr. Labaki delivered his defense at the Military Club before the League's invited guests, and the esteemed newspaper al-Amal published its complete text, so that it stands as a scholarly document which the women demanding woman's rights in the Arab countries must not fail to read.

Mr. Labaki spoke first of the Eve of "the poets" and the Eve of "the man" upon whom she imposed her will from the very first hour, so that he disobeyed God and obeyed her. Then he traveled through history and the civilizations, examining her rights from "the first law" onward, passing through the Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, and Phoenician civilizations, then the Greek and the Roman, then the Christian and the Islamic, down to the eighteenth century and the nineteenth. He pictured the stormy sessions in the French Parliament on the day the first woman licensed in law asked that her name be entered on the roster of the bar association — until he reached the Charter of the United Nations, the law upon which every women's bloc demanding woman's rights takes its stand, and which the states concerned consecrated only out of their desire to put an end to lame progress, to deficient advancement, and to one-eyed knowledge...

And he addressed the women with an enthusiasm beyond all enthusiasm, saying:

It pleases us — it pleases men — to make of woman a queen of fashion, a princess of rumors, and a sultana of hearts.

But to acknowledge her equality — no!

No! Because men fear for a society they have built upon the instincts of predation, lest it change or grow gentle.

No! Because with them force still triumphs over reason, and because their pride will not suffer them to see woman's superiority.

No! Because the cannon might fall silent and the stream of blood be cut off, and laurel wreaths be set upon heads other than those of conquerors and commanders, if mothers took part in deciding the fate of the world and had a say, like man's, in peace and war!

No! Because the white slave trade might be abolished.

No! Because the bonds between heaven and earth might be drawn close, and because borders might vanish — for "the mother" is a mother in New York, London, Paris, Berlin, and Moscow.

And of those who say that "each sex is called to practice the work that accords with its nature," he says that they know they are Pharisees, and that the mental disparity among men did not prevent the acknowledgment of every man's right to hold every office; and he calls upon them to open the way for their wives and daughters to share in building society — perhaps they may mend what man has spoiled.

The Women's Blocs Take Their Turn

After this lecture a meeting was held at the home of Mrs. Laure Tabet, attended by the presidents and members of the women's associations who had drawn up the plan for holding Women's Week, beginning it at the opening of the new year. The leading newspapers volunteered to publish articles on the subject, and Radio Lebanon opened space in its evening program for publicity.

As for this magazine, it does its part, and continues the poll it began in the departments of the high central government.

At the Ministry of Education

It appears that a press poll takes people by surprise, for some of those polled find it hard to remain in a natural state. Some begin by saying:

I have no opinion on this question. Or:

My opinion might not please people...

Some dodge the answer, and some "make themselves scarce," busying themselves with the telephone or with calling the usher to attend to some errand — and all of them remember that they are Lebanese, and so order refreshments.

And what touches the "delegate" before these "some" is her feeling that she is a mother facing a guilty child... Good Lord! How does this man, the monopolizer of all rights, come to fear giving his opinion before a woman... that very woman... the one whom he stripped of her right to the title of citizen.

With the poet Mr. Salah al-Labbabidi, chief of the bureau of the Ministry of Education

The poet tries to escape, then returns to his well-known courtesy and says:

I believe the Lebanese woman will attain her rights by way of her culture and by way of her direct influence upon man, for I know many brothers and husbands who still oppose this right. She must therefore, first, pursue her culture; second, win man's sympathy for her cause.

The delegate — Do you think culture is a basic condition for obtaining rights? Then why were these rights given to the uncultured?

Answer: Because the law gave this right to all men without distinction.

Question: And if there is an error in this law?

Answer: She must strive to reform it.

Question: Do you think woman's victory is near?

Answer: I believe the appointed day is still far off, for there are nations more advanced than Lebanon that have not yet allowed political rights.

Question: For example??

An official of some standing had entered the bureau and wished to join the conversation, saying:

For example? Turkey.

The delegate — If only you had not said it! Turkey! The first thing that great man Mustafa Kemal did was to give woman her political rights! The proof is what happened in 1935, after the women's congress held in Istanbul, when the Turkish Women's Union saw that Mustafa Kemal had given the Turkish woman what governments long and broad had fallen short of, and so resolved to dissolve itself! For the Turkish woman no longer had anything left to ask!!

And the delegate remembers that her acquaintance with the speaker is superficial and recent, and regrets the phrase "if only you had not said it," and her face reddens with embarrassment. And the speaker's face reddens for his ignorance of what goes on among the neighbors... and he withdraws in good order... Perhaps the counterattack affected the poet, or perhaps he feared the anger of his daughter Miss Layla, for he said, amending:

— In any case, I think we should begin by giving her the right to vote only.

The delegate — On that basis "The Woman's Voice" may count you a "half-supporter" — and should it blame you for it??!!

In the Inspection Departments

The poet Mr. Nicolas Bustros, inspector of national education in Beirut, still — despite all his poems in praise of woman — considers her less than half a man. He says:

— I absolutely do not favor woman's taking her rights in Lebanon.

Question: You say "in Lebanon" — as though you would allow this right outside Lebanon?

Answer: Yes.

Question: And why this distinction?

Answer: Because woman in Lebanon is still weak in the social sense. — Let us set aside a distinguished elite, which relative to the whole is a tiny minority — the Lebanese woman is a salon lady of the first order and a gambler of the first order; she is, generally speaking, slight of culture and weak of argument.

Question: And all these efforts in the fields of upbringing, teaching, and public relief do not tip the scale in your view?

Answer: No. Because the minority does not mean the whole. Culture must be spread before political rights are given.

Question: You all strike the same chord! Culture. And the porters — are they cultured? And the convicts in the Raml prison — they voted before their sentences were passed.

The poet leaps from his seat and says:

— Let us understand each other: I give woman the right to vote only, not all political rights.

The delegate: We have understood each other! You, then, are a half-supporter...

And the delegate goes out, her hope disappointed in two of the great officials of the Ministry of Education, saying to herself: assuredly, the poets of love-verse are one thing, and the seekers of human progress are quite another.

Her hope returns when she enters the office of Mr. Wasif al-Baroudi.

He is supporter number 1 — he speaks of woman, of her role in society, and of that society's loss on the day it casts her into the corner, with the warmth of a believer and the eagerness of a patriot who wants Lebanon's happiness today, not tomorrow. He says:

I do not look upon the question of woman as a question concerning woman alone. It is man's question at the same time — that is, if we wish to look at this important matter through the spectacles of human progress and civilized advancement. I believe that whoever looks at the development of civilization in the history of mankind with detachment and a sound scientific spirit will find that the ages of renaissance and progress among the nations appeared in those eras when cooperation between woman and man was close. And no sooner did circumstances, or man's selfishness, decree that woman shrink back from work in public affairs than the ages of civilization's decline began and the march of progress in that nation came to a halt — because the wise Creator, when He created woman a human being, did not create her for the operation of procreation alone, as some believe, nor for the raising of her own children only. No — woman was not created, with God having set in her soul those tender, lofty sentiments, to be selfish and care for none but her own child, but to balance what is in man of a strength that may reach cruelty and a might that may reach roughness, so that the qualities that distinguish her interact with the merits that are in man, and there emerges the ideal society that achieves happiness and rescues peace.

I believe that God did not ordain perfection in man nor in woman, so that each of them should feel the necessity of vital and social interaction with the other. Otherwise society loses every possibility of drawing near to perfection. Woman cannot claim that she alone is capable of reforming society, nor can man. And the facts of history are the truest proof of this.

Question: Do you think the Lebanese women's circles demanding political rights are proceeding in a way that will bring them to a near result — what are your criticisms of the method of demand?

Answer — For all my complete delight in the woman's renaissance, I hold one thing against it, which I observe in its associations and circles: its shrinking in upon itself, and the selfishness that springs from that. It demands woman's rights without merging them into the rights of society, and therefore it works alone in its demands and contents itself with the courtesies of a few men. It is as though, in its demand, it wished to work for a women's society other than the society of men. And that is the very sin into which men fell when they judged that woman should be tucked away in her house; perhaps some of the apprehension that appears in certain men has its origin in the sense of this tendency. This is borne out by what is recorded in the history of Greece: that woman lost her right to vote in the time of Pericles, when all the women stood together over the naming of Athens, and the men could not meet them with a like solidarity, because of woman's strong influence upon man's soul — so Athens was named Athens as the result of that vote. Whereupon Pericles issued an order forbidding woman to vote... I return to where I began: that we should look upon woman's question as a social question aimed at man and woman together, in a society where true cooperation is realized. This question will be solved only in the light of the interest of society as a whole — not for the interest of woman alone, nor for the interest of man alone. That is why I have several times already presented a proposal to the cultural and social circles on the necessity of holding a scientific congress to study woman's question in the light of the social situation in all the Arab countries generally and in Lebanon particularly. For in my view it is an important question that must not be left to improvisation.

Question: Some say the right to vote and to stand for election should be given to the cultured woman only. You know that the men who vote are not all cultured — how do you judge this injustice?

Answer: I explain this by what I said in an article I published on woman, the gist of which is that I see this view as an evasion by man to delay the question, when he says: this right for man is an acquired right, and the law was issued thus!! And since when have laws had the right to dictate to social developments? I believe that laws adapt themselves to society's need and its developments, and I cannot understand how injustice becomes an acquired right — and here one may well ask: why were legislative assemblies created, if not to amend laws? This problem will not be solved in a truly human way except by equality. The ignorant man was not deprived of the vote when this right was given to all men. Therefore women must not be divided into classes when this right is given to them. And if men fear that woman will leap at public posts, and one cannot keep away from a post the woman who is not fit for it — just as confessional politics has decreed, for example — so that we are forced to observe the percentage in appointments: I say that in such a case I prefer that woman remain in her home. In sum, the question is a human question that must be solved in a human, cooperative way; and in my view there is nothing against all the posts going to men — for example — or all of them to women, if merit so decrees.

Here the delegate says "Praise be to God," and remembers the poll at the Palace of Justice and the rigidity of the judges in the bureau of Rida Bey al-Tamer, and remembers the voice of that judge who followed her to the door, saying: Women and politics?? Never, never — I will not pass sentence of ruin upon Lebanon.

A Supporter Minister

And the round ends in the bureau of the Minister, Dr. Raif Abi al-Lama. In his waiting rooms are twenty visitors, men and women — and in the corridor half that number. God eases the way, and the delegate's turn comes; she enters and begins the poll standing, so the Minister remained standing too, saying:

— I favor giving woman all rights.

Question: When?

Answer: At once.

Question: But the new law — you finished drafting it only yesterday — withholds these rights. How do you think this law should be amended?

Answer: There are two ways — 1. Pursuing publicity in the newspapers, the magazines, and the radio, and winning public opinion, and especially the Chamber of Deputies. The second: coordinating and unifying the efforts of the women's organizations in Lebanon —

And let me ask you a question in my turn — you, the educated woman of letters — do you, madam, consider that the plan followed in Syria, that is, giving woman the right to vote but not the right to stand for election, is a sound idea? And do the women's organizations approve of it?

The delegate — Your Excellency's question goes beyond the competence I have imposed upon myself, which is to conduct the poll for the magazine "The Woman's Voice," not to offer opinions. The women's organizations have handed the whole matter to a special committee, to which I shall carry your question.

Answer: Since you refer me to a "committee" whose opinion I cannot know now — and though I do not much believe in business referred to committees — take my opinion: the question of woman's rights, from the theoretical standpoint, is a social battle which had best be waged all at once, so that woman either wins it or loses it. We are in a milieu whose circumstances are not yet all ripe to secure this victory for woman... It is therefore a gamble, and the hope of her gaining all her rights at one stroke is weak — whereas the gaining of "some" of these rights, that is, electoral rights for educated women only, is among the things that can be done, and it can be achieved in the near future.

The delegate — We have reached the thorny constitutional point! How do you see the amendment of the law being brought about?

The Minister — The law is amended if some deputies who believe in woman's cause see fit to amend it, or if the government presents a bill.

The delegate — May we count on Your Excellency to raise this subject in the Council of Ministers?...

The Minister — I do not think the Council of Ministers would present a bill of this importance unless it sensed acceptance from the members of the Chamber of Deputies.

The delegate — So it falls to the women, then, to "bring around" the deputies?

The Minister — To bring around — and to "ring around" — the Chamber of Deputies... In any case, the present deputies will not enjoy the ladies' "ringing around," for there is no room left in this Chamber's term... It is your duty, then, to work for the election of new deputies who will live up to good expectations.

The delegate — And if God should create what you know not?

The Minister — For example?

The delegate — If His Excellency the President should look to woman's worthiness and her abundant favors to this homeland, and use his broad powers, and smooth for her the paths of arriving swiftly at the parliamentary assembly???

The Minister — ?!

"The Woman's Voice"