"The Woman of Today Face to Face with Life." We took up the invitation cards sent out by the Lebanese Cénacle and went to hear our friend Edvick lecture.
I settled into one of the seats of the spacious hall, crowded with listeners, asking myself: would Edvick the woman fall in with sentiment and give us a talk to feed our vanity as women, allowing our shadows to stretch out before the men in the audience — or would Edvick hold to the side of reality, which may fail on the scales of sentiment but triumphs in the logic of truth?
Edvick chose to be logical where logic is due, and sentimental where sentiment is due. She spoke of woman face to face with politics, woman face to face with culture, woman in the fields of work, woman face to face
Mrs. Shayboub after the lecture: on her right Mr. Zuhdi Yakan, his daughter, then his wife Mrs. Habiba, then Mrs. Anissa Najjar. On her left, her two children Sarmad and Sana, and the founder of the Lebanese Cénacle, Mr. Michel Asmar.
A part of the audience, listening to Mrs. Shayboub. Front row, from the left: Mrs. Olfa Thanas, her husband Mr. Shukri Thanas, his daughter Miss Angelique, Mrs. Heneni Tarcha, then Dr. Elias al-Khoury.
with love...
In her talk of woman and politics, Edvick courageously declared that the victory of political rights was not the child of an organized struggle by woman, but came thanks to the awareness of the Lebanese man — and I do not think that in declaring this Edvick denied woman any truth.
As for woman face to face with culture, Edvick chose to be fair: she acknowledged those firm stands the Lebanese woman teacher has taken in spreading the glad tidings of the letter; yet she asked after the secret of woman's holding back from the fields of scientific specialization, so that the number of girl students in these fields is not commensurate with the women's renaissance as a whole...
In Edvick's word on woman face to face with love, the talk turned on the feminine response to the literary, social, and moral currents that blow upon us