With the Women Students of the American University of Beirut

The university girl is often envied for her student life, which has allowed her to free herself from the restraints of her society, so that she walks side by side with the young man, sharing his studies and his struggles, debating with him in the same atmosphere and on the same bench. Are these people right in this opinion of theirs? Do we not wrong our university sister when we envy her this life of hers? Let us pause a while at one of the universities and look into the matter.

It was the afternoon of a day now past when I went strolling among the tall trees of the American University of Beirut, gathering from the lips of this one a smile and from the eyes of that one a phrase, that I might succeed in studying the minds of these girl students who, not content with the learning they had gained at college, chose rather to break the iron chains that divide their world from the world of the university, and entered it full of wide hopes, drinking from the springs of learning and knowledge what the pens of writers and critics are powerless to describe.

Here I catch sight of two girls walking side by side, going over the lesson before the class hour begins; I draw near them and put to them that question that had been turning in my mind:

— What are your criticisms of university life?

As though they had been waiting for this very question, no sooner had I put it than one of them answered me, saying: What troubles me at the university is the way some of the young men look at the girls — they believe we are intruders in their society, with no right to share in their learning and their progress. They say that a girl's place is the home, not the university; that her position and her nature keep her from merging into this atmosphere. Yet alongside this I cannot but favor coeducation at the university, for it helps to change the mentality of the Eastern girl.

Here her companion looked at me with a smile and said:

The enchanting atmosphere of the university and its lovely grounds together help one to study and to grasp one's subjects, and encourage the making of friends for a lifetime. Moreover, the harmony that reigns among the students, for all their differences of creed and nationality, points to a noble step which our Arab lands are fostering to strengthen the spirit of understanding among their people.

What troubles me at the university is those barriers standing between the men students and the women students, as though each group were off in a valley of its own. They do not seek to draw closer, and they are not good at understanding one another.

No sooner had these two students finished than one of the medical students came up to me, saying:

What gets on my nerves at the university is the young men's saying that the hard studies — medicine, for instance — should be reserved for the young man, because a girl's heart is too weak to bear the sight of the surgeon's scalpel or the bodies of the dead. As for what I love at the university, it is that refined atmosphere which anyone entering feels at first glance.

Here I found myself surrounded by no small band of girl students, each wanting to give her opinion. One of them returns to what our first university girl mentioned before her, and says that what she holds against university life is the silly mentality of some young men, which says that a girl's place is the home and that she must not cross its threshold. But this student of ours catches herself and says, addressing her words to the young men: Is not a girl able to manage the affairs of her home if she is cultivated and educated? Does her occupation keep her from merging into her greater occupation? The answer lies with our educated ladies...

From there I walked to the library, making for some of the other students, and no sooner had I put my question to one of them than she looked at me out of the corner of her eye and said, curling her lips:

Is there anything more annoying than the camps and gatherings that are held at Faisal's or the "soda fountain"? And then this worn-out, reactionary mentality with which the male student adorns himself, and of which we girl students are made the victims — is it not fitting that I should be annoyed on its account? Nor will I hide from you my great admiration for the university's garden, and then for its professors and teachers, who are equal to the heavy tasks laid upon their shoulders.

I moved on to another and put the same question to her, and she answered me only with this brief sentence: What annoys me at the university is the abundance of empty talk among its men and women students.

And Miss Afaf Bandak, who is specializing in psychology, says:

I admire the bold step the girl has taken in joining the university to complete her higher studies; she has come to share with the young men in every branch of study, and has even given proof of a capacity that entitles her to surpass the young man in many branches of specialization.

From the social side, however, the deficiency is plain to see: the girls keep to themselves in one corner and the young men in another, as though the two parties were at feud. The excess of gravity in the girl has made her create around herself an atmosphere tinged with bashfulness and social prejudice. This comes of environment, and of a lack of sex education from childhood onward.

And now!!... What say the critics and the enviers?... Do they still hold to their opinion that the university girl is to be envied for the life she lives?