In Society

★ We spoke in the last issue of the joining of the 'Lebanese Women's Union' and the 'Lebanese Women's Solidarity' into a single institution given the name 'the League of Women's Organizations.' Its constitution has been drawn up, and eighty-six Lebanese women's associations and organizations have joined it.

In the course of the past month the president and the full administrative board of this institution were elected, and the result came out as follows:

1 - Mrs. Laure Tabet, president by acclamation.

2 - Mrs. Najla Saab: vice-president.

3 - Mrs. Ellen Rihan: recording secretary.

4 - Mesdames Nina Trad, Loreen Shoucair Rihani, and Salwa Mahmasani Moumina: corresponding secretaries in the three languages.

5 - The wife of Deputy Habib Moutran: treasurer.

Then seven committees were elected, namely:

1 - The Emigrants' Committee, headed by Mrs. Heneni Tarcha.

2 - The Culture Committee, headed by Miss Zahiyah Dughan.

3 - The Social Affairs Committee, headed by Miss Laure Nasr.

4 - The Protocol Committee, headed by Mrs. Hortense Tamo.

5 - The Young Women's Committee, headed by Mrs. Alice Yared.

6 - The Politics Committee, headed by Mrs. Alice Nakkash.

7 - The Economics Committee, headed by Mrs. Sumayya al-Khazen.

It is hoped that the League of Women's Organizations will work, with one hand and one heart, to unite woman's ranks and to raise her standing, so as to realize in practice all her social and civil demands, now that she has won her full political right.

★ During the past month Lebanon received a great Egyptian guest, the women's leader Dr. Doria Shafik, as she passed through Beirut on her way to Aleppo at the invitation of Dar al-Kutub al-Arabiya, to deliver a lecture on the influence of the Arab woman in the renaissance of the Arab East.

Before her departure for Aleppo, Dr. Doria Shafik called a press conference at the 'Palm Beach' Hotel, attended by the president and members of the General Arab Women's Union — Mesdames Ibtihaj Kaddoura, Nazik Sarkis, and Muneera Shehadeh — by the president of the Syrian Women's Union, Mrs. Adila Bayhum al-Jazairi, and by a company of the leaders of the women's movement and representatives of the press.

During the conference Dr. Doria Shafik declared that she was most happy at this opportunity afforded her to convey the Egyptian woman's warmest congratulations to the Lebanese woman upon the victory she had lately won by gaining her full political right; and she affirmed that the Egyptian woman would gain her demand soon, in view of the promise of Major General Muhammad Naguib, and that she would never be content with anything short of the full right.

Then Dr. Shafik said, in her capacity as president of the 'Bint al-Nil' party: The party today numbers some three thousand members, who will know no easy sleep until their demands are realized. We have carried out three great demonstrations, by which we proved that woman, like man, understands well the causes of her homeland. And we have now submitted to President Muhammad Naguib a plan for fighting illiteracy, under which the illiteracy of the Egyptian woman will be wiped out within a mere three years... She went on to say:

'We are proud and rejoicing at what our Lebanese sisters have attained; they are the finest example for the women of the Arab East, which will never rise to its feet, and for which no progress can be decreed, save upon the shoulders of woman. She is awake in nearly every country, and it will not be long before all women have come out of their shells to exercise their political and social activity and to lift up their countries.
As for the religion of Islam, it will be no stumbling block in the way of this leap, for it has done woman justice more than any other religion; and even our enemies, the 'Muslim Brotherhood,' have lately begun to understand this truth and to acknowledge the justice of our cause.