I Was Born a Female

How saddened I was when I received a letter from a friend of mine recounting the tragedy of a girl I know personally. What I want is to draw my readers' attention to some of the tragedies of the children of this generation, in which a bitter psychological struggle rages, endured by a delicate, sensitive soul that folds it away in its depths.

The heroine of this story is an educated girl of twenty-three, holding a licence in letters from one of the famous universities. Beyond this she is broad of horizon and widely read, and she passed through the stages of schooling, from kindergarten to university, with evident speed. She won the admiration of her teachers and professors and of her family's friends, and the prizes for excellence were always her share. And before all this, she is good-looking, descended from a wealthy, well-known, conservative family.

What, then, does she lack in order to be happy, alongside beauty, youth, culture, and noble origin? Nothing, as it appears to the people around her. And so I too found her, ever since I came to know her at my side in our university studies, and saw in her what belies the claim that life is never serene for anyone.

And now that circumstances have brought us together again, her pallor and her evident anxiety caught my attention, and I asked her: What is the matter, my friend? Are you not happy? She answered weeping, and began to recount to me one of those stories of continual torment, the kind that eats away at the soul and poisons life because it meets with no sympathy from those who hear it.

I grew up, my sister, and was raised on something other than what I am now. The atmosphere in which I lived — the atmosphere of study — gave me wide scope to express my ideas and to work with all boldness and energy, and everything that occurred to me was of use to me and to my society. My one aim, once I had finished my studies, was to become an effective member of my society. But hardly had I finished when I was worn down by a cruel persecution from my father. He set himself against everything I wanted to give in the service of my homeland and my people, and every wish I wanted to fulfill.

I do not understand why my brothers are allowed to work in the very same humanitarian field in which I live, though I am the only one in my family who managed to excel in the field of study and obtain a degree in higher studies. My whole crime is that I was born a female in a milieu that concedes to the female no right to life except as a grant from a father or a brother or a husband, which he may take back whenever he pleases.

I am telling you, my sister, about a university girl, not a girl of a bygone generation. Ah, how I long to teach in our schools, to give the rising generation the right guidance, or to work in some of the associations, so that I might count myself a creature effective in her society, not a machine driven along.

This pressure, this nightmare, is nearly killing me. I can bear it no longer. Is it a disgrace for a daughter to work and to serve? They hold that a girl works only if she is in need of money. They do not want to understand what a person reaps from work. The moral benefit one gains in working is better than the material benefit. The living being was created to work and to be useful, each according to his inclination and his capacity. The pleasure I feel, my dear, at being a paralyzed limb provided with everything it needs is the pleasure of the bird in the golden cage.

I have tried many times to resist this nightmare, but I could not.

This is that girl's story as I read it in my friend's letter.

And the conclusion I draw is that most of the girls of our society have lived hounded, or as perishing victims. One is hounded by a brother or a father or a husband; another is mocked by society.

Let us hold these men to account before God for what we have endured. And let us give our daughters after us a calmer and happier life.

Fatima Sayim al-Dahr
Aleppo, Syria

... Behind the tale lies a slaughtered soul folded in upon itself, which, were it given free rein, would work wonders and prove its immense capacities! When, one wonders, will this elite of our girls be set free?!