Women's Rights at Souq Okaz...

The evening of Thursday, June 14, 1951, was the appointed time of the debate session called by the Education Bureau of the Kataeb Women's Organization.

At the appointed hour the invited guests, men and women, streamed in from the various organizations and associations, and especially the leaders of the women's movement in Lebanon, until the courtyard, for all its breadth, was packed with the audience.

In a free and easy atmosphere the national anthem was sung; then Miss Dr. Nihad Nasr mounted the platform and delivered the address of the Women's Organization.

The floor was then opened to the debaters. Mrs. Dr. Jamal Karam Harfush spoke, opening her address with an act of faith in the freedom of man and in his ability to find a way out of the present critical world impasse, by acquiring the essential needs of the spirit and by union with all mankind; and she called for Lebanese men and women — as individuals, as a nation, and as part of God's free world — to be enabled to recognize the essential things and cast off all that is not essential.

She then ranged, in a splendid defense, over woman's right to equality with man, resting her case on nature, on the San Francisco Charter, and on democratic society's need of woman; and she pointed to woman's distinctive capacity for social reform, by drawing man back from his total absorption in material display, at the prompting of his selfishness and greed, toward competing in the service of the public interest.

The speaker then went on to enumerate the practical means by which woman may obtain her political rights: first, from the legal side, such as the necessity of applying certain articles of the constitution and amending certain laws; and second, from the general side, forming a public opinion to strengthen the Lebanese front which sees an absolute necessity, for the national interest, in affirming the principle of equal rights and in working for its complete application, in a manner faithful to the spirit by which democratic systems proceed. She divided the opinion to be won into three: women's public opinion, the parliamentary blocs, and Lebanese society in its broadest and most general form; and she went on to enumerate the methods aimed at traversing each of those stages — some of which have been used up to today, and which ought to be used to win what is sought, in the service of society in all its classes and quarters.

After her, Mr. Wafiq al-Husami mounted the platform and asked whether it would be preferable for the Lebanese woman to obtain the right of municipal suffrage first and then the rest of her political rights, or to obtain her political rights whole and undiminished at a single stroke. He opened his answer by painting a historical and social picture of woman and her political and civil rights in bygone ages — and of the beginning of the women's renaissance in demanding her civil, social, and political rights, and the opposition it met from man — and then arrived at an ardent defense of woman's right to take part in political life, pointing out that the hesitation which stands in the way rests on no sound foundation, for taking part in political life will not remove woman from her home, occupying but little of her time; and in this she will not differ from the crushing majority of men, who attend to politics only in their leisure, since those who make a profession of it are in any case a few, and such will be woman's position too. Her exercise of political rights will occupy her only a small stretch of her leisure hours; why, then, distinguish between woman and man?

The speaker asked how people could oppose granting woman her political rights while we see unanimity on the education of girls: the father or the husband or the brother refuses to have them ignorant and idle, and sends them to schools and colleges, to the playing fields and the marketplaces — and then

refuses and opposes granting them the right to vote and to be represented.

He ended his address by appealing to men: extend your hand to woman, clasp her spotless hand in a handshake of equal to equal, be sincere of intention toward her, and acknowledge her rights complete and undiminished.

He was followed by Mr. Said Akl, who said in his prophetic voice and his deep manner of speech: "It is a disgrace that the woman question should be posed at all. In any event, I feel that woman is taking her rights. But this victory lays a heavy burden upon her shoulders, the burden of civilization. Will she, one wonders, prove worthy of the level to which she will rise? Will she lead man in Lebanon and teach him what he has not learned? What is asked of woman in Lebanon is to perform a deed like that performed by Elissa and Joan of Arc — namely, to ward off the danger encircling Lebanon, the danger of a state squatting like an octopus upon its flanks, whose aim is to destroy it and blot out its glorious heritage. Thus woman will have the honor of raising men from the level of zero to the level of the limitless." He closed his words by calling out: "Give me a hundred women of the breed of Elissa and Joan of Arc, and with them I will conquer the world and change the face of history."

Then the floor was given to the deputy Mr. Jean Skaff, who stated his opinion with complete frankness, setting out the differences existing among the various women of Lebanon and the difficulty of imprisoning them all within one crucible of real equality. He praised the continuous and mighty work being done by the women's associations in Lebanon, considered the results they have reached encouraging in every way, and held that woman should proceed by degrees in obtaining her political rights, passing through preparatory stages — such as giving her the right of municipal suffrage first, then parliamentary suffrage second, and the right of representation last; and we have in the advanced countries decisive proof that woman in politics is an element of good.

The closing address fell to the lawyer Obeid

Issa, who set the woman question in its scientific place and studied it in the light of the comprehensive human problem. He sketched hasty lines from the history of women's affairs and confined them to two tendencies: the first, which holds that woman must remain in the home to serve man, to bear children, and to rear them — and this is the view of the Lebanese generally; and the second, which considers woman man's peer in all rights and duties.

After showing that woman has in fact gone down into public life, into the arena of general social production, he asked whether it is possible for her to obtain the rights that open to her the field of deciding the fate of that production by democratic political means.

The answer is that the United Nations — and Charles Malik represented Lebanon from its very heart — has affirmed political rights, and there remains the application of the principle in all the countries that have not yet done so.

This affirmation will not become effective unless it is spread in a manner that convinces the masses of the necessity of its realization; and the method of shouting and clamor and spontaneous gestures will avail nothing, for conviction comes from the soundness of the opinion and the force of the view, persuasive in its reasons and its ways of realization.

Nor will woman be emancipated until she earns her living by herself, according to sound progressive socialist thinking — and so be freed.

And what are the means that make this emancipation a fact? It is woman's enrollment in the progressive parties, which alone overturn arbitrary, exploiting conditions; thus woman will obtain her full national rights on a footing of equality with men in the service of the nation.