Women's Rights in the Middle East Today: Law, Religion and Culture – International Conference in Cyprus

I had the honor of participating in this wonderful gathering of scholars, activists and artists working on gender and women’s rights issues in Southwestern Asia and North Africa. Once again, Dar al Kalima University College of Arts and Culture and CAFCAW have succeeded in challenging the intellect and establishing a dialogue between diverse identities and currents. The conference was […]

A Taboo Question Revisited

I live in a predominantly European neighborhood in a ‘cosmopolitan city in the Arab world’. It’s beautiful, modern, and quiet, with big villas surrounded by lots of greenery. It’s picture perfect, and every time I leave my compound and drive away, I feel like I am leaving a story book. As I drive, I see […]

Reeds from Red Lips – Dr. Pamela Chrabieh (American University in Dubai News)

AUD School of Arts and Sciences Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Dr. Pamela Chrabieh has recently edited and published a book entitled Reeds from Red Lips on Arts and Gender in Southwestern Asia. The book includes diverse stories told through poetry and prose in English, French, Modern Standard Arabic and Lebanese, and encompasses a […]

Never give up your right: a story of domestic violence, sexual abuse and daily struggle

Today is international women’s day. It’s 4 in the morning and I can’t sleep. Ironic. I was born at 4 o’clock in the morning. I was born a girl. If I only knew then what I was going to go through in my life, I would have wished myself not to be born at all. […]

Lebanon vs Sweden…Who wins?

A girl growing up trying to fit in but fails miserably, lost between two cultures… I was born in a land of war, killing and bombing. I remember all the windows we had to change because the glass broke when the bombs fell outside like rain. Many of our neighbors soon stopped changing the glass […]

I was born a girl…

I was born a girl… “Born a girl” means being judged by my family and relatives for who enters or not “the place” – a “place” where my entire family’s value and honor lay, i.e. “between my legs”. “Between my legs” is my father’s honor, my sisters’, my uncles’, yeah everyone in my ‘tribe’. The […]

A Little Empathy Would Go A Long Way

I attended a Dubai Slam Poetry session few days ago and one of the talented young poets, Syrian Sarah Tamimi, told the story of war through a daughter’s promise to her departed mother: ‘Don’t look back’… What I understood from Sarah’s tearful performance which content evoked my own experience in Lebanon’s physical war zone in […]

Alice’s Pearls

I was interviewed few hours ago for a documentary and one of the directors’ questions was about my pearls. My answer had nothing to do with eclectic styles mixing and matching old and new, luxury and humbleness, ‘East’ and ‘West’, or the importance of filling one’s neck with necklaces that strike me fancy. Even if […]

Keset Hayaty El Gdeeda (My New Life Story)

I took 3 different photographs of my sister in which she resembles 3 different women. I made sure all 3 pictures are exactly the same, in terms of makeup and lighting, and focused on dark makeup on her eyes and eyebrows, for a deeper intensity. The first picture depicts my sister with her long flowy […]

My story with Arranged Marriages

“I never knew that I would be able to write about my experience as a woman of this community. I’m here today because of it, I’m here because it has made me who I am today: a woman trying to embody the ideals of both the West and East, a constant struggle, a constant obstacle- […]