Woman's Supporters and Her Opponents — A Historical Review (Illustrated Report)

Ever since the Lebanese Women's League founded the magazine "The Woman's Voice," the demands for these rights have gone forward; month after month it has published all manner of guiding articles, to prepare public opinion first, and then to demand of the official authorities that these rights be placed within the sphere of legal study.

Then "the Executive Committee for the Demand of Women's Rights" was formed — a noble circle of wise ladies who believe in reaching the right without rashness and without agitation. They knocked at the houses by their doors, and did not cease until they obtained from the Council of Ministers what counts by right as "the first positive official step": the Prime Minister, Mr. Abdullah al-Yafi, declared his complete desire for the equality of woman with man, drew up with the Council of Ministers the text of the bill, and referred it to the Administration and Justice Committee of the parliamentary assembly, which approved the bill by seven votes against four.

At the same time the woman of letters Mrs. Salma Sayegh — one of the family of "The Woman's Voice" — had undertaken a far-reaching poll: she polled ministers, presidents of high courts, judges, heads of departments, lawyers and men of letters, and published these opinions in this magazine beginning in the month of June 1950.

And for the record — for the record and nothing else — "The Woman's Voice" presents a review of this poll, thanking the champions of woman's cause and appreciating the sincerity of those who will concede this right only by stages. As for those who want woman nowhere but in the kitchen — or in the salon — it wishes them God's pardon and His beneficence...

At Mr. Rashad Azar's

Since the bill had come out victorious from the Administration and Justice Committee, and among the members of that committee were a number of adversaries, Deputy Mr. Rashad Azar — one of the four honorable gentlemen who opposed the bill — was asked to defend his hostile stand toward woman... He was told:

Q — And why do you want to squeeze yourself onto the list of our enemies?

A — I have never been and shall never be an enemy of woman, and I wonder at your putting this question to me, when you know my inner heart better than anyone.

Q — But your vote against woman in the Administration and Justice Committee contradicts what is in that... limpid... inner heart. Speak frankly. You are a deputy for the South, and you are an intimate, lifelong friend of a great leader who in every election still commands the crushing majority. Now, since you will remain faithful to this friend, giving women the right to vote will assuredly answer you with the votes of all the sisters and mothers and daughters and kinswomen of your great friend. Why then do you take this stand — the stand of enmity toward the women who will be your electors in the next term?

A — First of all, voting against the bill to give woman her right does not mean that I am her enemy. As to the second part of what you say, I reply that I am not hunting here for my personal interest. I say — and I shall be grateful to The Woman's Voice for this poll, that I may defend an opinion to the full — I say:

I admit that the right woman demands is a natural right of hers. But I resisted the bill out of my certainty that its passage today would produce the opposite result. In Lebanon we confront differing currents from the educational standpoint, in the home and in the surroundings, in the village and in the city. Add to this the plain difference in traditions and customs between one neighbor and the next, and among the sons of a single sect — nay, of a single family.

Q — You mean by this that you want to bide your time until the mentality is overturned. Then who is to overturn this mentality, when you shut out from legislation the very element capable of overturning it?

A — I call your attention to the fact that any law which does not accord with the customs and morals of the country's people remains compulsion on paper. And if we enforce it, we go back tens of years. As for "overturning the mentality," and your saying that woman cannot do it so long as she remains far from legislation, my answer is that woman is quite able to overturn this mentality in her home and her surroundings, and to rely on time, which is the guarantor that will help evolution along. I point here to unveiling, which has become general "perhaps the honorable deputy means to say that it has nearly become general..." without any violence or clamor. I call your attention to the fact that twenty-five years ago people would throw silver water on a woman's clothes if she wore a short dress or changed anything in the familiar costume. And had a lawgiver driven women to unveil by force, he would never have reached the result we have reached.

Q — So on this account you want us to move along the road of equality slowly and gently, as in the matter of unveiling?? A quarter of a century before the custom of unveiling took hold "and it has not yet become universal" — and half a century before we gain equality in political rights, or more?? My friend, the wheel of civilization turns far faster than you suppose! In two years, or four, or five, the women of Tibet and Mongolia and the wilds of the Amazon will be in houses where they sweep and wash and cook on machines driven by atomic power! Yes, sir, the wheel is spinning at a tremendous rate, and you want the wheel of time to amble at its leisure, as in the tale of unveiling a quarter of a century ago!!

A — I am a practical man, madam. I want people first to acknowledge that woman is a complete human being before they acknowledge her political right. That is why I raised in the Administration and Justice Committee a point of the greatest importance, such as giving

For so long as we look on woman as equal to half a man in inheritance, we cannot look on her as man's equal, and her civil right is hostage to our will alone.

Q — And what is your view of restoring to her all the rights at one stroke — the civil rights and the political rights??

A — I shall go on defending my theory to the end: "the civil right first, then the political right" — that is, evolution first, then the right. Compulsory education first, then the political right.

Q — Among the men who elect you in the South, do you have a crushing majority of quick-witted men who can read and write? And when you stretch out your foot to the shoeshine man, do you never think of the injustice done to me, and to this wife of yours, when you see that the shoeshine man possesses a right that we do not possess?

A — I know that "illiteracy" is a calamity. The illiterates among the men are no matter of pride for us; that is why I do not wish to pile affliction upon our affliction. And I hold that it would have been better for woman to come forward of her own accord to demand that education be made compulsory for boys and girls. Had she done so, she would have set up the proof that she treats the question from its very foundation — would that woman would first demand from man the rights of man.

The poll ends with the delegate pointing to the hundreds of times woman has demanded reform from A to Z — she has demanded it in the pages of magazines and newspapers, in petitions and from platforms, and nothing was vouchsafed by the men, and they lent an ear to nothing. That is why she wants equality in political rights, as a consecration of all the other rights — the rights of women and the rights of men.

And the young deputy, Mr. Ghassan Tueni, has a weighty opinion where woman's rights are concerned. He raised his eyebrows, asking with a touch of astonishment: "I do not know who it is that spreads it about in my name that I oppose the woman's cause! How could I possibly oppose a cause that is the very foundation of our modern renaissance, in which I believe and for which I work?.. It is the reactionary elements that take the negative stand toward woman, and I am not one of them, thank God!!"

Azar, the delegate meets Deputy Mr. Saeb Salam, and asks him for his opinion, and whether he will appear in The Woman's Voice's review among the supporters or among the opponents. He says:

A — I am woman's supporter first and last. I do not say this out of courtesy. I am convinced that there is no advancement for man before the advancement of woman, and no freedom for a man or a country or a homeland before its women are freed. In any case, the bill is now before the Chamber of Deputies.

Q — And if the majority in the Chamber refuses to ratify the law today, may we expect of you that you will separate the municipal elections law from the law on elections to the Chamber of Deputies, so that woman may enter the municipalities after a year?

A — I promise you, if the majority goes with woman's opponents, to strive to shape the municipalities law in woman's favor.

Q — Will you not promise me — besides — to struggle alongside woman to change the minds of the opponents, of the likes of Mr. Rashad Azar?

A — I hope that you ladies will wrest the assent of the opponents before that of the supporters...

Philippe Bey Takla says: "We want the rights by stages, for the leap is impossible — impossible."

Mr. Badri al-Maouchi acknowledges the Lebanese woman's abundant merit in all the works she performs, whether in the associations or in the departments of government, and salutes her with great honor and respect — but... "he holds that evolution must proceed in many stages."

And he sees nothing to prevent woman's being gradually given a share in social tasks.

Mr. Rida Bey al-Tamir does not want the wife to go out into the street to amuse herself with demonstrations and the scandals of parliamentary life. "Instead of attending to offspring and cooking and ironing — no, no, and a thousand times no."

Mr. Wasif Baroudi opposes those who say that man's right is an acquired right because the law happened to be issued so... He does not understand how injustice becomes an acquired right, and asks why legislative assemblies exist if not to amend the laws. And he sincerely believes that this problem will never receive a true and humane solution except through equality.

Mr. Salah Labaki says: "These Pharisee men! They will not acknowledge woman's equality because they fear for a society they have built on the instincts of predation! They will not, because the cannon might fall silent and the stream of blood be cut off, and because the white-slave traffic might be abolished."

Dr. Raif Abi al-Lamaa: Woman must be given all the civil and political rights — and today... not tomorrow.

Mr. Nicolas Bustros begins by saying... "The Lebanese woman, generally speaking, is a salon lady and a gambler of the first order, and her arguments are weak." But before long he changes his mind and allows her, out of his generosity, the right to vote only.

Mr. Salah Labaydi opposes because many oppose. Then he softens somewhat after learning that woman in Turkey votes — his honor was unaware that the Turkish woman was made equal to the Turkish man back in 1924!! — so he gives her the right to vote only.

Mr. Hasan Qublan says: "When the ordinary Lebanese man uses his rights in full and does not shirk the exercise of his right, it will become woman's right to strive to obtain these rights"...!

Mr. Georges Sourati gives the right to all women, lettered and unlettered, to vote — but not to be elected; and wherever it is possible to profit by the devotion of women, that profit should be seized upon at once.