The Art of Specialization

For half a century or more the Lebanese woman has been in continuous struggle.. Her demands are many, her aims are lofty, and her spirit is greater than all that crosses her path... She drew up her plan of defense and followed it — deliberate, patient, silent — until at last she was able, in the least time imaginable, to reach her highest goal.

At the beginning of her constructive movement, woman was still deprived of most of her rights, foremost among them learning... Learning in those days was permitted to the man alone; as for the girl, this subject was no concern of hers, because learning, in their eyes, corrupts morals and opens before the girl many horizons... horizons that our forefathers of old considered a door to vice and emancipation.. So they shut her within four walls and forbade her the enjoyment of the charms of nature and the charms of life, and enjoyed these things themselves alone. But the revolt of those emancipators was stronger than everything that opposed it, and so the girl was able to enter school and to drink her fill from the overflowing springs of learning..

The first problem ended, and the girl came forward with intense desire to obtain learning, and registered an unequaled victory in this field. But the crisis was not over; the problem returned to its beginning. Hardly had the emancipators laid down the mighty weapon of the first battle when they began to make ready for a second — a battle stronger and more perilous than the first; nay, more truly and rightly to be feared than the first.

Yes, the girl felt the importance of her existence, and sensed the necessity of her work and her struggle, with awareness and understanding; she wished also to understand the questions of her country, its problems, and the difficulties in which it flounders. She wanted to be a constructive individual.. an individual at whose will the country rises, and at whose will it falls back... So she resolved to enter the university — and how hard was the word "university," or the word "specialization," in those black ages, in those days gnawed through and through by fanaticism and filled with idle tales and superstitions...

A renaissance without parallel.. a blessed movement which woman undertook, and in which she triumphed; and this victory of hers was recorded in the register of existence, because she was confronting a mighty power with that very weakness of which they used to accuse her.. So she applauded her victory, and laughed the loud laugh of the victor after long toil and weariness.

It was a mighty step in the history of woman. The girl entered the university carrying a self-esteem, an ardor, and a desire beyond imagining, because she believed in the importance of the message she bore, and believed in the necessity of her existence in the national being. Therefore she was able to reap the fruit of her aims swiftly, and these efforts of hers were able to bear fruit, because she did not enter the university, and did not seek specialization, for amusement and play, or so that it might be said of her that she was specialized — as our girls do today. Perhaps this single point is the one I have wished to root out, for I have grown weary of these absurdities that I have heard and seen from some of our girls who have knocked at the door of the university...

Woman's aim in entering the university was not, in truth, to specialize for her own sake; it was not her aim that people should say of her that she was specialized, nor did she think of such silly things. She wanted to specialize in order to carry out the message entrusted to her, in good faith and devotion, with guidance and awareness; and so she reaped the fruits of her aims. And those victories which the women of that era recorded are victories the girls of today would find it hard to equal; and whatever progress and renewal we see in our present time, we remain indebted to their mighty efforts, for they are still at work in the field of social service to this very day.

Those foundresses had a sacred message, and they knocked at the door of the university that it might help them to complete this message of theirs...

But we — why do we knock at the door of the university?? This is the point that set me thinking about such a subject, for I have touched upon many things that have made me fear for these specializing girls, because their aim is far from specialization and their purposes have nothing to do with this subject...

The girl of today is not the girl of yesterday.

The girl of yesterday had work and production for her aim...

The girl of today has amusement and the passing of time for her aim..

The girl of yesterday aimed at lofty ends behind her specialization..

The girl of today has no ends behind her specialization.

Yes, the girl of today has not entered the hall of specialization in order to be able to work in the future — no; her entering was for no reason but that she intends ease, and exemption from duties, and distance from everything that is a duty and everything that is tiring..

The girl of today entered the university to amuse herself; she wanted to pass her time, because she cannot bear to stay shut up at home after having come this far; so she preferred to knock at this door, bearing the hardship of study, preferring it to staying at home awaiting the young man of her dreams...

Yes, staying at school makes possible her continual coming and going; it makes it possible for her to slip free of the harsh bonds of the home. She cannot wait for her young man — perhaps she will chance upon him in the hall of specialization or on the road to school; waiting for him makes her anxious... she wants him ideal.. she pictures him in her imagination and builds her dreams —

but what matters to her is that he be rich, because she wants to live; nothing matters to her except that all her demands be supplied...

Specialization, then, no longer carries the meaning that specialization carried at a time not so far off... Yes, the meaning has changed as the times have changed.

The girl of today has come to relish having it said of her that she is specialized; and so she has not gone to it with her heart and her will — she has gone to it under compulsion, and only for appearance and deception, and as a matter of time that she is required to pass in the shelter of the family home...

I knew a girl still in the prime of youth — nay, still in the age of roses — who enjoys, besides, a natural beauty by no means slight: the desert granted her its dark coloring and breathed attraction and life into her eyes, so that she seemed a gazelle the desert had sent to us. I loved this girl, and esteemed her too, because she intended to specialize. But one night there happened what I had not expected of her... Some girl companions came to visit her, and I was at her house, and they asked her what she intended to do?? She answered them with entire frankness: "I intend to go on with my studies, because I cannot bear staying at home; rather than stay shut up waiting for the awaited husband, I pass this time at school." Then she gave voice to her vexation at going back to school — and that was all. This is the sole solution of her problem, because the house disquiets her and shuts her off from her aims, and she will not stay in it.

This is what that girl said — nay, this is what most of the girls of today say.. Specialization, then, is no longer an end in itself; it has become a means of passing the time and of waiting.

How hard it is for those foundresses, those emancipators, to find the result of their toil thus; and how hard for them to find deceiving appearances in place of the reality they await after their blessed struggle...

Few are the girls who have understood the meaning of specialization, and who have charged themselves with a message that will declare their existence after they specialize. Yes, they are few — but how many are those who have not understood the meaning of this word, and so have cheated it of its due and made it cheap and worthless.

Specialization, then, is a sacred word; it is a sin for anyone to seek it who cannot render it its due.. and a sin for anyone to knock at its door but one who trusts herself and is sure that she understands its aim...

So let specialization be an end for whoever wills it... a sacred end... one that carries us toward truth, goodness, and beauty... an end that carries us toward the better, the finer, and the more complete — not as we have come to understand it today.