A Citizen — When Paying Taxes!

This is a word I address to the Lebanese man, hoping that, should he read it, he will open his mind and his heart to understand woman's just demand, look kindly upon it, and support it.

The Lebanese woman is Eastern; she keeps the traditions, and by virtue of her home upbringing she respects the man and reveres him, regarding him as father and husband, head of the house and source of blessing, and she detests the rebellious mannish woman. But this has bred no submissiveness in her: when she demands her rights as a citizen she does not take the posture of a beggar, for she is asking for a right that is naturally hers. It pains woman, sir, to be forced to demand of you a right of which God did not deprive her, a matter He did not entrust to you, nor did He authorize you to withhold it from her or bestow it upon her as alms. Rather, she believes that God lavished upon her the gift of tenderness and love and the spirit of sacrifice, alongside intelligence and a living conscience; and so she asks to cooperate with you in managing the affairs of Lebanon for the good of Lebanon. Woman feels for the worker and the farmer, cares for the rising generation and its upbringing, and concerns herself with the vagrant, the sick, the orphan, and the disabled. She spreads the spirit of peace and universal brotherhood — and how greatly we need peace and brotherhood.

When woman reads Article Seven of the conditions for electors in the Lebanese constitution — even after its amendment in the month of August 1950 — the article which stipulates that the right to vote in Lebanon is restricted to men, she sees in this a diminution of her right and an insult to her, and she rises up against this diminution. Having entered every field of work side by side with man, she refuses to be deprived of exercising the right to vote and to stand for election, and refuses to be placed on the level of the feeble-minded, minors, and criminals, whom the constitution of Lebanon bars from the right to vote, as set forth in paragraphs three and five of Article Twenty-One of the Lebanese constitution. Would you place the Lebanese woman on the level of these, O Lebanese man? Woman — mother, educator, wife, sister, and daughter?

The sovereignty of the people means the organization of the powers in the interest of the people, so that no one of its members has any privilege over another. Is woman in Lebanon one of the people, or is she not? Is it permissible that she be counted among its members only on the day she is required to pay taxes or is punished for breaking a law?

As for the proposal of the legislative committee — despite its acknowledgment of woman's right to equality — the proposal to grant her this right in stages, the Executive Committee of the Women's Organizations in Lebanon, which has the honor of speaking in the name of the Lebanese woman, has rejected it flatly, finding that it diminishes her right and places obstacles in her path.

I shall not take up the worn-out tune we have heard so often, that woman is for the home and the children, nor the heavy joking that some repeat, saying that the father will be forced into the kitchen if the mother enters the Chamber of Deputies. I shall not take this up, because the conscious, cultivated woman understands her duties better than the critics do, and because she holds motherhood and her duties to her husband sacred, and considers them the loftiest thing for which she was created. She will not neglect her family out of love of the limelight, and she will not stand as a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies unless she has the time for it. And there are a number of women who have ample time and who believe in the justice of the demand, and yet will not stand for election. The Lebanese woman does not demand equality out of love of show or out of mannishness; she demands it, and insists on obtaining it, out of firm conviction and in quest of justice and of cooperation with man in service.

The woman to whom the affairs of the children and the home are entrusted — with all that the rearing of the rising generation holds of service to the homeland and of the building of its most important pillars — is broken in spirit and weakened in morale, and she grows angry, when she is not treated with justice and when she is regarded as a minor, and no minor is she. She who is fit to rear the rising generation is fit to bear responsibilities and to undertake serious work.

Some time ago Mr. Muhammad al-Naqqash criticized the Lebanese woman in the newspaper Beirut al-Masa, because every time she demanded her right she contented herself with submitting memoranda and writing articles, and he urged her to press her demand in a different style — a style that frightens the men, in his own phrase. I thank Mr. al-Naqqash for his sympathy with our cause, and I wonder whether the men of Lebanon must be frightened before every rightful claimant is given his due, and whether they must be frightened before woman obtains her right to strive for the elevation of the homeland under the dome of parliament.

For a year now the Executive Committee of the Women's Organizations in Lebanon has been setting forth its cause in memoranda, articles, interviews, and publications, and it has spread propaganda against every candidate who did not back the cause of giving the Lebanese woman her rights in full. The woman of Lebanon will not attempt to frighten anyone, for she believes in the justice of her demand, and believes in demanding without interruption, with dignity, calm, and sobriety; and she believes that in Lebanon, and in the new Chamber of Deputies, there are men who will do justice to woman, who will listen to the voice of justice and act upon what it inspires.

There is a comprehensive movement in Lebanon. The women of Tyre, Sidon, Tripoli, and Zahle, and of every town and village, stand in solidarity with the women of Beirut. Telegrams pour in upon the Executive Committee of the Women's Organizations, supporting, encouraging, and urging the continuation of the work. And we shall continue the work until we obtain our right, for the raising of the homeland's standing, God willing.