My attention was caught by an interview published in one of the Lebanese magazines with three university young men returned from the West after several years spent there in study and the pursuit of learning. The questions put to them concerned the Western girl—whether this girl pleased them, and what the difference is between her and the Eastern girl. I then read a reply to the three university men written by an Arab girl—a university girl
herself—who was offended by her colleagues' answers, since they disparaged the life of the Eastern girl and expressed their admiration for Western women. This moved me to examine this delicate subject and to speak of the differences between the Western woman and her Eastern sister.
The three university men agreed that the Eastern girl is a superficial creature, lacking confidence in herself, limited in ambition, her aspirations bounded by marriage. She is—in their view—dependent and averse to responsibility, since she considers herself a negative part of society; she is also repressed in her feelings, remote from politics and from aims of her own. Quite the opposite of the Western girl, who is deep in her thinking, entirely confident of herself, and ambitious to the furthest limits of ambition. She takes up the challenge of responsibilities and shares with man the bearing of life's burden, for she sees herself as a positive part of society. She gives material things only a secondary place, and
she marries only when she loves, because she believes in the gifts of youth; on gifts she centers her love, helping her chosen young man to bring out his talents and give them shape.
As for the girl's reply, it was to accuse the three young men of flabbiness, confusion, and lack of personality, and of encouraging the licentiousness prevalent in the West, which the conservative traditions of the East forbid and refuse.
Each of the two parties held some portion of the truth and another of error. And I regret most deeply—I, an Eastern girl—that I must stand beside the three young men to set forth many of the truths to which they pointed. It has been my fortune to observe the Western woman at close range, in all her stages: I lived with her as a student, worked beside her as a working woman, and kept her company as a wife; and in all her stages she was an example bearing out the opinions of the three university men.
I admired her taste, her elegance joined with simplicity, and her extraordinary energy, which drives her to prove her existence
and her right as a primary element in the advancement of her nation.
And I admired her relations with her surroundings: she is a gentle creature, a graceful talker; in her voice are balance and confidence; she overflows with a captivating friendliness and womanliness. Her view of life is a view of optimism and hope. She is cheerful; she does not fear failure, no setback dampens her spirit, and she feels the keenest pleasure in overcoming difficulties. Above all this she is sociable and adaptable, with her own influence in her circle and her surroundings, letting no occasion pass without seizing it to help shed life, gaiety, and hope upon its atmosphere.
Then there is her artistic personality: strong, frank, bold, creative; she believes in her own philosophy, but she is not fanatical about it.
And I admired her as sweetheart and as wife: she is simple and faithful to her feeling, as though she lived for her feeling and for her man... She understands the man, shares his life with him, and helps him to develop his ambition and his confidence. To him she is friend, and companion, and sweetheart, and wife, and rearer of his children.
And I knew her as a student: she was energetic and ambitious, hungry for knowledge; poverty does not keep her from pursuing her studies, and she combines work and study when forced to it. She works in the political field and joins the parties, of all their different kinds. In her political life, as in all the other sides of her life, she is a foundation stone of