Lame Legislation

Here is the voice of another bold supporter, who sets the dots upon the letters — and declares his frank opinion on the granting to the Lebanese woman of curtailed political rights.

They may say: "Sugarcane is sucked knot by knot, and a ladder is climbed step by step," to justify granting woman her political rights in the form in which she has obtained them. But there is a logic that does not recognize this "gradualist" principle; it says that equality cannot be, today, 8 = 6, to become tomorrow 8 = 7, and the day after 8 = 7½, and then, after a time that may come and may never come, 8 = 8.

Either we acknowledge political rights for woman equal to the rights of man, or we do not acknowledge them for her. And here I ask: why is the illiterate man granted all his political rights while the illiterate woman is denied them?

I hold that the ignorant woman is better than the ignorant man, because nature has endowed her with a fine intuition ("intuition") which it begrudged the man. Justice and logic therefore require that the legislation embrace all women of full age, provided they fulfill the necessary civil conditions.

The Covenant of the League of Nations in 1920 opened the field of work to man and woman both, without regard to sex. The Charter of the United Nations at San Francisco affirmed the principle of equality between them, and the Declaration of Human Rights gave expression to it. Lebanon adopted the Charter and the Declaration together, and its constitution said: The Lebanese are equal...

How, then, are we to interpret this equality... and what logic are we to rely on in the matter?...

Stuart Mill said: "Humanity long ago abandoned the principle that was taken as the basis for declaring woman's political incompetence. If what is meant is an office, then the capacity to fill it suffices; and if what is meant is a right, then the competence to exercise it suffices. To reject the principle of equality (equality in its true sense) is nothing but aggression and despotism."

Will the Lebanese males long be content to bear the mark of aggression and despotism?...