In the Field of Social Services: Where Has Woman Erred... and Where Has She Done Well?

It is well known that the calamities of the First World War alerted minds to the necessity of caring for the classes that make up the economic force in peacetime and the armed force in wartime, because it is they who in fact bear the greatest share of the sacrifices and disasters... No sooner had that war ended than the European and American states turned to these classes and began to look after their affairs and to mobilize the available means to combat the scourges of bodily and mental disability, want, the feeling of inferiority, and a parasitic existence, profiting from every theory, opinion, or experiment, and drawing on the abilities of the individuals and groups working in this field. The subject became the chief preoccupation of governments after it had been the concern only of individual reformers and lovers of humanity and good.

Then matters developed, and the Second World War came; it was like a raging wave that drove those working in this field to press forward with vigor and speed, after what they had seen of the effect of those services in saving the lives of many, in softening the shock to millions, and in putting an end to the chaos of societies.

Thus the spread of social services became the best index of the progress and superiority of peoples, and the finest advertisement of the rulers' work, their devotion, and their good readiness... The clearer and wider the differences between the classes, and wherever there exists one class enjoying its wealth and influence at the expense of another class that suffers in its ignorance, starves in its hunger, and groans under its weariness and sickness, the more surely we find that people on the list of peoples backward socially, economically, and politically.

And since I believe that social services fall upon woman before man, especially in our Eastern lands—for we find that woman has more spare time and more empty days than her sister in the West—I turn to this side of the subject and say:

It is very beautiful to hear and read of our women who have felt their duty toward society. And it is very beautiful to find some of them slipping into the field of service in an attempt to fill the void, founding or joining the Women's Union, Child Protection, and the Red Crescent in Iraq; the Women's Union, the Red Crescent, and the Muhammad Ali Charity in Egypt; the Red Crescent, the Princess Basma Charity, and the Women's Union in Jordan; Child Protection, the Women's Union, and the Milk Drop in Syria; and the Lebanese Women's League, the Women's Union, the Girls' Refinement Society, Child Care, the Consolation Society, and the Ladies of Charity in Lebanon, and many other numerous and varied associations and institutions... All that is beautiful, and more beautiful still are those principles that the titles and names have embraced and the bylaws and programs have contained—but come along with me, and let us look into the measure of practical success those associations have attained and the goals they have achieved.

I do not deny that the scope of social services in the Arab countries is continually expanding, and among the signs of that expansion are the hospitals, the dispensaries, and the shelters; such things point clearly to the humane feeling stirring in woman's heart and her desire for work... Nor do I deny that there are many women who have taken up the work with willingness and enthusiasm, and that some of them have sacrificed their time and their comfort for it. Yet this admission does not prevent me from looking at the subject from its practical angle. And any other woman who cares to look with me from this angle will find that most of those who have worked in this field up to now have done so on a basis of amateurism and improvisation, and on the assumption that mere humane feeling and love of good, together with an open hand in material donations, are enough to meet the need. As for scientific study, actual volunteering, technical coordination, the bearing of responsibility, and the enlistment of specialist women and of the more vital elements—these either never occurred to them, or occurred to them but were considered secondary.

Social services, my dear readers, like patriotism, are not a luxury, a mark of standing, or a display of wealth, but a duty, an obligation, and a responsibility... They are not a means of publicity, of killing time, of seeking presidencies and showing off fashions, but silent work and continuous struggle, in which there is sacrifice and self-giving, as there is also contentment and peace of conscience... They are not merely the forming of delegations, spending on travels, attending conferences, and appearing in the newspapers and magazines, but production, and the lightening of the pains of individuals and the misfortunes of families... They are not a monopoly of a certain class, nor a preserve of the women of the elite by virtue of their wealth or their connection with the rulers by some tie of kinship; they are service and work open to all... They are not for turning the centers into social gatherings and holding parties, receptions, and farewells; they are the accompanying of the vagrant, the benefiting of the wayward, and the sustaining of the needy, treating them, teaching them, and guiding them.

I do not incline to pessimism, nor do I wish to dampen anyone's spirit or to criticize any particular person or any association in itself; but I hold that we are walking the wrong road. If we keep to this limited—or blocked—path of ours, there will be neither social services nor the benefit hoped for from them. And we shall not only have fallen short in our duties; we shall have helped to spread yet another likeness of the official bureaus and the routine transactions whose way of working and of handling matters we ourselves complain of.

Surely some of the women who work in this field remember the failure and the shame that befell them—or that ought to have befallen them—when it happened that they received certain European and American visitors, specialists or women of renown, and found that the sumptuous buffets, the magnificent mansions, and the lush gardens did not draw the eyes of the guests of honor; nor did these take comfort in the lavish hospitality with which they were met, so much as they felt the disappointment that accompanied their request to see something, their desire to become acquainted with some aspects of social activity and actual services, to talk with the disabled and the afflicted, and to eat in the kitchen of the shelters, with the vagrants and the wretched...

We must treat matters in our own way, and from the impulse of our own feeling and conscience; let us not follow man and imitate him in the individualistic spirit rooted in him and in his denial of the spirit of community, which our societies lack most sorely.

We must work to rouse public opinion and to draw its attention to the social problems under whose weight it groans—by visiting homes, by offering counsel and advice to their mistresses, and by opening the way to women of ability and of specialization and preparing them for this end...

For how can the problems of a society be solved before that society is understood by scientific, technical, and statistical methods, and before work and tasks are distributed according to those statistics and data?... And is there any pleasure greater than that which a person feels in helping the wretched, serving the needy, entertaining the crippled, feeding the infirm and the neglected, cheering the confined, directing the wayward, and guiding the miserable?... Is there not in this saying a lesson and a ring—'The best cure for your sorrows is to acquaint yourself with the sorrows of others and to throw yourself into seeking out one who grieves, to console him'—.. Ask what is felt by Father Yaacoub the Capuchin, founder of the home for the crippled in Lebanon, and by Mrs. Nazik al-Abid Bayhum, foundress of an orphanage and a school for refugee women, and by Mrs. Katinko Siksek, foundress of the refuge for the sick in Beit Jala, and by Mrs. Matilda Salem, proprietor of the George Salem School in Aleppo, and others... Ask about the pleasure they sense in their social services, and you will be assured of it—if they can express their feeling with ease.