Maguy Achkar al-Hajj — the fierce opposition ...

Let us define the lines before [...]

We had met before ... our faces were familiar .. For never did an article or a story or a poem of ours appear in The Woman's Voice without our sending our pictures along with it .. taking pains that the pose of the face should be striking .. eyes turned a little to the left, a coquettish smile on the lips, and hair dressed with a great deal of loving care. We had met before — do you suppose the pictures recognize one another? And when a single room gathered us together, the lips knew their worth .. a cup of coffee and a cigarette, moistened and savored, a drowsy elation running through it .. and talk flowing with the assurance of the understanding human being, the philosophizing woman, and the expert man. It could have been no

one but her, Samira Azzam, to light the fuse. — The Woman's Voice: for whom, and why, does it appear? Is it that magazine which takes up the causes of life and binds itself to bring out women's thinking upon them, and which therefore addresses both of them, the man and the woman? Or is it a magazine of fashions, and hairdressing, and the care of fingernails? Let us define the lines before we begin. Samira would gladly have answered her question herself — for once she begins to speak, before and after melt away — had not the voice of Maguy Achkar al-Hajj broken out, saying:

What a difference there is in the readers' points of view on "The Woman's Voice" as it appears today!.. No two people agree about it .. and we do not exaggerate if we say that there is a wide divergence of judgment, in the face of which the editor-in-chief found herself in need of consultation and of sounding out opinions; so she invited to the monthly "round table" a bouquet of those who have accompanied the magazine through the stages of its ten years, whose eyes and hearts have never turned away from it .... in the hope that a drawing-together of opinion might help steer the editing toward a new course and a new policy, in which there would be, for the magazine and its readers, satisfaction and good .. It was a lively session, in which Mr. Youssef al-Khal debated with Mrs. Maguy Achkar al-Hajj and Miss Samira Azzam. For an important excuse Mrs. Anbara Salam Khalidi was absent.

The pen of Nahida Fadli al-Dajani records the proceedings of the "round table"