too late for guidance — and there is a pressing need for it, because the Lebanese woman has not yet freed her opinions from husband, father, and brother. If we begin working now, we shall not have to say tomorrow: we are too late.
Nakkash: I know there are some women candidates, and I do not think we should oppose a Beirut woman candidate, for example..
Qaranful: I think the union of women's votes will have a great effect on the coming elections.
Nakkash: We want her to prove her competence to equal man in this right, at least once.
Malik: The educational guidance ought to have begun six months ago, but we can now undertake a general guidance.
Kaddoura: Yes; and I do not think man's level is so very much higher than woman's.
Tadros: But we want to offer a lofty example, and we shall not be content to follow the method he has pursued; rather, we shall lay out a new plan.
Fayyad: While we are at the discussion, we must take account of the candidates and guide woman toward "whom" she should elect among the men.
Tadros: This, in my belief, is very necessary so long as we have not secured a woman candidate.
Qaranful: This guidance must take in the educated women and the
unlettered alike, so they may know how to elect the best.
Nakkash: Why do we stray from the line... It is necessary that there be a woman in the Chamber... I insist on my word, necessary: and it makes no difference whether the number of deputies is 66 or 88.
Kaddoura: It remains, then, for the women to stand behind a woman they believe in.
Malik: How?
Kaddoura: The League of Women's Organizations, for example, elects a candidate...
Malik: If Ibtihaj, for instance, entered the field, all the ladies would back her...
Kaddoura: I shall not go into the battle except upon an insistent wish from those around me, for a deputy's seat, like the practice of law, is held by mandate, not by pressure and the buying of votes... Nor can we go on saying that man is better when we have not tested woman's ability. And what people does that deputy represent who does not attend the sessions of the Chamber?.. Woman can at least mend such a state of affairs.
Malik: We can take the Municipal Council as an example to be followed; we counted woman among the luxuries, whereas today she is a necessity in it; and in the Chamber of Deputies we do not want her to confine her concern to women's affairs alone... Then, the campaign can begin this very
hour.. We shall set out a model of the qualities of the elector and the elected, and "The Woman's Voice" is our stage for that..
Tadros: The campaign's effect would grow if woman backed it every week with a guiding speech, to make her voice heard by the public.
Malik: We need scores of speeches.
Kaddoura: I am anxious to keep this project in the hands of the League of Women's Organizations.. and I call for an extraordinary session to be held by the League to discuss the problems of the elections, and the necessity of woman's participation in parliamentary representation.
XXXX
With this proposal the seminar closed, and each lady went her own way... And we, hoping that the League of Women's Organizations will adopt this project, wait for the woman's voice to rise soon beneath the dome of Parliament, and to ring out bold, free... and sincere.
A mother left her three children in their father's charge and went off alone to spend the weekend with some relatives. On her return Sunday evening, she found that her husband — a practical man — had left her a report on the results of his care of the children during her absence. Here is its text:
Trips to buy balloons — three per child Average "life" of each balloon — 10 seconds Drying
of tears — 9 times Tying of shoelaces — 12 times Visits to the bathroom — 14 times Compliance with bedtime — 0 times! Warnings to the children against crossing the street — 17 times Crossings of the street by the children — 19 times Wiping of running noses — 3 times Nerves on edge — 31 times Feeling the urge "to scream" — 31 times Possibility of repeating the experiment — 0 times!