I thought of writing this article when a friend of mine told me her nationality (Eastern European) is labeled ‘only good for prostitution’ in certain Arab countries. I knew prostitution is an ancient reality in the Middle East, still, I wasn’t aware of the growing phenomenon of transnational prostitution and the stereotyping of nationality and ethnicity it created.
Prostitutes – and especially heterosexual female – are usually classified in three categories: high-class prostitutes, tourism prostitutes and poverty prostitutes. The first category caters to the domestic elite and foreign businessmen, is generally well-educated with well established careers and practices prostitution as a sideline. The second category of prostitutes is often independent and attached to bars or hotels. The last category, the poverty prostitutes, is the worst off since they are always abused and receive low payment. During the 90s and especially in the last decade, there was an increase in high-class prostitution, with women from diverse backgrounds (locals and European mainly) working as escorts.
What are the causes of this increase? Most scholars attribute it on the growing poverty everywhere – one of the trends of globalization – and the tremendous development in technology and communications – refer to virtual sex tourism. Migration is another factor that encourages the globalization of prostitution. The late twentieth century as well as the beginning of the twenty first century is marked by transnational movements for work, business and leisure.
Let us not forget that globalized prostitution has an inherent link with abuse because generally the male dominated society sees women as sexual objects, providing sexual labor. Behind prostitution lies a world of violence and exploitation. An integral part of the globalization of prostitution is also racism. For example in Lebanon and Dubai, there is preference for the lighter-skinned – refer to Eastern European women. Kuwait is a destination country for women from Eastern Asia; Saudi Arabia too. In Tel Aviv, there is a huge traffic of women from former Soviet republics. In Egypt, belly dancing is used by many European women as a first step towards prostitution – also Argentinean, Brazilian and French.
Nowadays, the Middle East is both an exporter and importer of sex trade. Centers of international prostitution include Dubai, Istanbul, Marrakech and Beirut. According to journalist John R.Bradley in his book “Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East.”, it is time to crush the popular perception of the Middle East as erotically stifled, and the West as the land of sexual expression and freedom. The more nuanced truth, he says, is that these seemingly opposite cultures have far more in common than we often admit: Both “live under rulers who, under different pretexts and with varying degrees of severity, seek to curb the unruly sex urge as a way of maintaining social control.” There is also a shared “gap between propaganda and reality” and “a vast gulf between public and private morality,” he argues.
What about male sex workers? They are to be found everywhere in the Middle East. “From the malls of Jeddah to the souks of Marrakesh, from the main drag in Tunis to the downtown coffee shops in Amman, boys are available, for an agreed price, as they always have been”.
En lisant la presse ce matin, je tombe sur la photo d’une franc-tireuse syrienne, la ‘première’ femme guerrière de renom au sein du bataillon de l’opposition au régime en place (‘Armée Syrienne Libre’), nommée ‘Guevara’, opérant surtout à Alep, et voilée. Flash back à ‘la Violence et le Sacré’ par René Girard, et surtout, aux amazones, révolutionnaires françaises, miliciennes libanaises dans les années 1980, etc.
Dès le VIe siècle av. J.C., l’art et la littérature grecs développèrent le mythe des Amazones, cette tribu de guerrières qui habitaient des terres aux confins du monde civilisé. L’Ancien Testament chrétien retint, pour sa part, le livre de Judith qui raconte comment cette femme juive parvint, par la ruse, à approcher et à tuer Holopherne, le chef de l’armée assyrienne qui assiégeait Béthulie, la ville de son peuple. Dans The Encyclopedia of Amazons, différents cas de figure se présentent: quelques femmes, nobles, ont accompagné leur mari dans leurs guerres, ou ont parfois dirigé une armée. D’autres ont été femmes soldats. “De façon générale, les femmes furent les protagonistes de combats désespérés. La majorité ont lutté pour la défense de leur espace proche, ville, château ou domaine, souvent lorsqu’il y avait un déficit d’hommes pour défendre la place. L’état de siège constitue l’occasion la plus favorable pour que les femmes se transforment momentanément en guerrière. L’efficacité de leur action tient fréquemment au sursaut de vaillance qu’elles suscitent chez les défenseurs, plutôt qu’au nombre d’ennemis qu’elles abattent. Le temps de leur engagement dépasse rarement celui de la résistance. Leur prise d’armes reste temporaire et elle n’altère en rien leur féminité”.
En examinant le cas de Jeanne d’Arc, qui combattit les Anglais pour le compte de Charles VII, Jeanne Hachette, qui participa à la défense de Beauvais (France) lors du siège dirigé par le duc de Bourgogne en 1472, et Madeleine de Verchères, qui se battit pour défendre le fort de son père contre une attaque des Iroquois en 1692, on se rend compte qu’il était ‘acceptable’ dans ce contexte à titre d’exemple – et dans bien d’autres – que les femmes interviennent activement par les armes, lorsqu’une situation militaire devenait critique. “Le processus par lequel une femme se faisait soldat était très bien codé et peut être comparé aux rituels d’inversion des rôles décrits par les anthropologues: Premièrement, on distingue une courte période de rupture durant laquelle elle cesse de se comporter en femme et fait accepter sa nouvelle conduite comme soldat par le groupe social. Dans un deuxième temps, qui dure aussi longtemps que pèse la menace, elle participe activement au combat contre les ennemis. Une dernière étape du processus a pour fonction de la ramener à son état féminin antérieur”.
“L’analyse du cadre spatial a montré que le fait de combattre introduisait la femme dans le domaine public. Devenir guerrière relevait en quelque sorte d’une double transgression. La première tenait à cette intrusion dans une sphère réservée aux hommes, la seconde au geste même de prendre les armes. Cette double rupture d’interdit n’était tolérable qu’en vertu de son caractère exceptionnel et temporaire. Elle comportait toutefois ses risques de dérapage, comme le montre le dénouement de l’histoire de Jeanne d’Arc qui ne parvint pas à réintégrer son rôle féminin (…). Transgression permise momentanément, l’exercice de la fonction guerrière par une femme se termine normalement par la paix, qui rétablit l’ordre antérieur et qui exige une marque significative et publique du retour de l’héroïne à son état originel”.
Il fallut attendre le XXe siècle pour que les femmes obtiennent, entre autres, le droit de vote et la possibilité de porter l’uniforme militaire. Toutefois, dans la plupart des sociétés moyen-orientales, être femme guerrière est plutôt comparable à la situation des femmes européennes d’il y a trois à cinq siècles, où il est question de transgression temporaire ou d’exceptions à la rêgle!
Le cas de ‘Guevara’ la franc-tireuse syrienne n’est pas le premier cas au Moyen-Orient, ni n’est un cas isolé. Néanmoins, la ‘surprise’ qu’il suscite chez beaucoup – hommes et femmes -, imprégnée d’un sentiment d’indignation, d’approbation ou de réprobation, nous renvoie à des problématiques de fond: la violence est-elle le propre des hommes ou de l’être humain en général? Etre femme implique automatiquement être pacifiste? La violence, une fois mêlée au sacré, est-elle encore plus l’apanage des hommes versus les femmes? La violence est-elle innée ou culturellement acquise? Qu’en est-il des nouvelles recherches en neurosciences, notamment le concept de la plasticité du cerveau, lesquelles démontrent que le 90% des différences se trouvent entre individus et non entre sexes?
Following a first encounter organized by ‘Women in Front’ yesterday afternoon of at least 30 Lebanese women activists, journalists, university professors, lawyers, etc. all wanting to improve women’s participation in politics and decision making, I remembered the experience I had while living in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) with a group of women under the leadership of professor Denise Couture, ‘Féminismes et Interspiritualités’ (La Grappe), advocating for feminisms and cultural/religious identities in dialogue.
The contexts, conceptual approaches, group dynamics and mission statements are of course different, but ‘diversity in dialogue’ (or trying to be in dialogue) is a common point. In Montreal, women in our group came from different backgrounds – Christians, Muslims, Jews, ‘Sorcières’ (Witches), Agnostics, Voodoos, Hindus, Baha’i … – and feminisms – leftists, rightists, third-wave, alternative. In Beirut, we were from different religious – Muslims and Christians mainly, but also non-religious – and political affiliations – March 8, March 14 and ‘independent’, a diversity of generations – women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s,… -, of fields of expertise, of marital status, of life experiences and world visions…
Differences were a treasure we cherished in Montreal and tried to manage while searching for a common ground. In yesterday’s gathering, I saw a strong will to deconstruct the culture of violence against women. I saw women actively involved in fighting for their rights and it gave me hope for a better future in Lebanon. However, many challenges lie ahead in order to build a sustainable movement for an effective reform of both our social-political system and ‘mental/mentality’ structure:
1- The public space is still a place where women’s bodies, actions, and voices aren’t legitimate. The public space – patriarchal space -, is violently policed to exclude its Others. Thus the importance of inventing and circulating counter-discourses in parallel discursive arenas or subaltern counterpublics. It is in these counter-spaces that we can begin to articulate the complexities of our feminisms in action, including in political action. Those counter-spaces are to be built within the current social-political system and around it, in order not to lose our freedom of expression once those spaces are institutionalized (formalized), nor to become ‘paria’. A fine balance should be found…
2- Questions we should answer: would a female parliamentarian necessarily promote a feminist agenda? To what extent women doing politics ‘à la libanaise’ would be ready to sacrifice personal/sectarian/family interests for the sake of other women? Isn’t there a risk of commodifying the feminist cause and facilitating the assertion that sexism must be dead because we have female politicians? What about women who don’t feel obligated to vote for a candidate because she’s a woman – not only women with a patriarchal mentality, but also feminists? Clearly, there should be a debate between those who find it is not enough to hold certain beliefs or values – those values must be represented by and in one’s actions -; and those who believe that it is in the very act of voting or simply supporting, that one, in a sense, constitutes one’s feminist identity. This is a major issue: if we consider our actions to be part of the ‘performance’ of feminisms, then what are the risks and possibilities of various kinds of performance (or lack thereof)? A focus on feminism as something enacted in and (continually) structured through performance is a crucial tool for resisting essentialism, which is the death knell, so to speak, for all historically marginalized, disenfranchised populations.
3- Feminists in Lebanon must actively seek to co-construct what feminism(s) means to every one of them and in each community, becoming inclusive and open to alternative interpretations if it is to thrive. I sadly noticed yesterday – and in other arenas too – women trying to impose their feminism as ‘the true way to follow’: ‘secularists’ versus ‘religious’, ‘leftists’ versus ‘rightists’, ‘pro 30% quota in the Parliament’ versus ‘no quota’, etc. When we fail to recognize the importance of our differences and to try to seek common ground without excluding each other, not only vehement opposition to feminism (s) will be diffused, but the Patriarchal system (s) and culture (s) will expand. Recognizing each other’s subjectivities is our only hope to overcome oppression and for feminist movements to involve their audiences, no matter how hostile they may be. This is what I would call ‘the opportunity to do feminism (s) kairotically’ (referring to ‘kairos’), in the sense of paying attention to the context of communication, understanding the audience and its needs, and identifying emergent moments in time and space that are ideal for rhetorical action based on unity in diversity.
As a scholar and activist of feminism, I urge my feminist friends, colleagues and future partners to be vigilant, “preparing and planning for rhetorical events to occur, as Cicero would have us do, and also seizing emergent moments that lend themselves to doing feminism(s) rhetorically, as Gorgias and Isocrates would advise. If we want others to do feminism(s), we cannot allow feminism(s) to violate or oppress potential feminists (read: everyone/anyone) or we become that which we have tried to overcome. Feminism(s) does not have to be the ‘f’ word that people in polite company just do not say; rather, it should be the event in which everyone is invited to participate”.
Women in Front, Sodeco (Beirut), January 2013, with Dr. Pamela Chrabieh
Feminisms in Dialogue (II) will soon be published, with more challenges …
A question I have been asking for years , especially when I hear of women being publicly humiliated or murdered when caught in extra-marital relations or having sexual intercourse without being married, whereas men are generally ‘heroes’, or are easily forgiven for their acts – men are seen ‘naturally’ polygamous.
Men and women are treated equally in most sections of the Lebanese criminal and penal codes, with the exception of laws that address adultery, violence against women in the name of “honor,” abortion, rape, and prostitution. However, why a supposed violation of a marriage contract (which is in the personal status law) is in the penal code? Why is there inequality (men versus women) in defining the conditions and consequences of adultery?
Articles 487-489 punish a woman who commits adultery with a prison sentence from three months to two years. She is found guilty if the act takes place inside or outside her home. A man committing adultery, however, has to be caught in the act in his own home or be known by others to be conducting an illicit affair to be sentenced to prison for one month to a year. A woman is required to have the testimony of witnesses to prove her innocence, whereas a man can be proven innocent based on lack of material evidence, such as incriminating letters or documents.
Other countries in the region also have similar laws criminalizing adultery, including Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Even if few adultery cases are actually handled in the courts, adultery is seen as a ‘moral crime’, a ‘religious crime’, a ‘social crime’, etc., especially in the case of women, to the extent of murdering the woman in the name of family ‘honor’. Fortunately, on August 4th , 2011, Lebanon repealed article 562 of the criminal code that permits mitigation of ‘honor’ crimes such as the killing or injury of a wife, daughter or other relative to protect the family ‘honor’. Through this previous article, the State condoned acts of violence against women who were considered to be ‘misbehaving’. It specified that any person who ‘surprised’ his spouse or a relative in the act of adultery or a same-sex relationship and kills or injures the other party without premeditation, may have their prison sentence shortened. Always applied on women…
A paradox: In Lebanon, domestic violence is not specifically covered by the penal code. A draft law to criminalize domestic abuse was passed by the Lebanese cabinet in May 2010 and was rejected a while ago. Article 252 of the Lebanese Penal Code still allows for sentence mitigation for crimes committed in a state of rage. Certainly it could be said that ‘honor’ crimes, as were depicted under Article 562, are crimes that are committed in a state of rage and thus criminals could still benefit from reduced sentences. This legal framework is problematic as it is impossible to abolish a law that takes account of the state of rage of the individual who commits the crime and still maintain a distinction between pre-meditated murder and second-degree murder.
Also, forced sex is inadequately defined in Lebanese law. The definition of rape explicitly excludes forced sex in marriage, and the rape of a virgin by means of deception is potentially subject only to a fine (article 518). If a rapist marries his victim following the crime, the law exonerates him (article 522). Similar legal provisions pardoning an alleged rapist if he marries his victim exist in countries like Bahrain, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The majority of countries in the region also do not criminalize marital rape.
“Provisions that criminalize consensual sex between adults and that fail to criminalize forced sex fall short of international standards, which require the elimination, prevention, and punishment of all gender-based violence, including marital rape and domestic violence. In 2008, the CEDAW Committee, the United Nations expert body that supervises implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women, called upon Lebanon to enact legislation on violence against women, including domestic abuse and marital rape”.
Remark: Lebanon ratified this Convention in 1997, with reservations on Articles 9 (equal rights for men and women in citizenship and nationality), 16 (elimination of discrimination against women in matters of family and marriage) and 29.
First, conditions and consequences for adultery should be equal for men and women. Second, adultery shouldn’t be criminalized in the penal code; it shouldn’t be a matter of the State, nor of religious tribunals, nor of family (parents, uncles, aunts, cousins…). Although it causes a lot of harm to the spouse, the consequences – whether divorce, negotiations or forgiveness – should be left to the privacy of the couple.
International human rights law requires decriminalization of consensual adult sexual relationships to protect the rights to physical autonomy, health, and privacy. Furthermore, international law forbids laws that discriminate based on gender, in this case providing more severe punishments for women for the same alleged offense. Therefore, as a matter of human rights, consensual sexual relationships between adults should never be criminalized. Lebanon’s penal code provisions on adultery not only discriminate against women, they violate the rights of men and women alike.
How many times have we heard stories about cab drivers and their lack of ethics in Lebanon? They try to get more than a normal fee out of passengers to go from point A to point B. They surely overcharge foreigners. And, they engage in obscene conversations with guys and girls.
The typical Lebanese cab driver finds it very normal for him to ask a guy about his sex life. Well, this being the Lebanon it is, guys are supposed to be out there sexually while girls are tucked away safely in their parentsa�� houses. But, it is not really the guysa�� sex life they are interested in; they are more curious about the a�?situationa�? of girls in Lebanon. They want to know if they are a�?opena�?. They want to know if they let guys touch them, and weirdly enough they seem more curious about girls who havena��t even reached a legal age. With the questions I face, I dona��t know what to think of these men. Dona��t they have sisters? How about daughters? Assuming they have neither, would they accept someone speaking this way of their mother?
The questions are bearable compared to the comments they make when they see a woman. At least with questions one has a way to turn the conversation around and let the man look at things differently just a bit. But, with such comments what can one do? Smile and agree? Smile and shut up? Get off the cab and try finding another that hopefully doesna��t share the same views as this one? And then what? How can a young adult tell a man to watch where he is driving when he almost had an accident because he was drooling over a woman? How can a young adult tell a man the age of his father to stop goggling at the breasts of a woman who has a kid on her arm? How can a young adult make that man see that women are not objects he can yell sexual things to and wink at as they are peacefully walking down the street? Even if they were dressed to seduce, even if they did a�?looka�? like they are promiscuous, dona��t they have the simple right not to get harassed and have their personal space violated?
At one time I asked the cab driver if he had kids. He said he had two sons, and one of them was married. Women cana��t seem to escape being the subject of harassment, whether single, married or parent. Either way, respect is due. It is not due specially because they are women, it is so because they are human beings.
This kind of conversation happens between a�?mena�?. This does not happen if there are female passengers in the car, as if this were a club welcoming members only, members with male genetics. Worst yet, this is a culture where most men feel safe in, they see no wrong in the way they objectify women, and men who dona��t are attacked and accused of being either gay or impotent. This is the easy side of the passenger seat, when the passenger is a male. What happens when the passenger is a woman is a completely different story, to be told on a different occasion.
One of the perks of being a female athlete is the invitation to show off, and prove that you can really do what you pretend saying. When younger cousins dare you to accomplish those deeds, it is just as important to be funny and take it lightly than to make a big deal out of it. Did I lose any of my female qualities when I lifted these men up? Did they lose any of their masculinity because they were lifted by the other weak gender? That was not the impression that I got. What issued from that morning was a lot of mutual respect and an open discussion about the possibilities that a woman can achieve once she set her mind to it, and her ability to be true to herself while doing “manly” activities. Sometimes, it is probably best to avoid confrontation with words and degrading actions.
Laughter can be one of the best ways to introduce a new concept or idea, and to open the minds to new possibilities.
And sometimes, a picture is worth a million words.
En tant que Libanaise vivant au Liban, je jouis certes d’une marge de liberté introuvable dans certains pays avoisinants. Je peux conduire une auto, enseigner à l’université, boire un kir royal dans un bar huppé de Beyrouth, me pavaner en mini-jupe en toute saison, fumer le cigare ou la pipe, débattre de sujets ‘sensibles’ en société dont la relation politique-religion, la mémoire de la guerre, la construction de la paix, etc.
TOUTEFOIS, je ne peux, en tant que Libanaise, ouvrir un compte bancaire à ma fille sans l’aval de son père ; quitter le pays en cas de litige avec mon époux, même si en danger de mort ; être élue au Parlement sans être ‘la fille de…’ ou ‘l’épouse de …’ ou la ‘veuve de…’, sans parler du piètre 3% de représentation féminine; accéder à un poste adéquat à mes compétences et à l’équité salariale, même si mon C.V. dépasse de loin celui de mes compétiteurs ‘hommes’ pour une même position ; clamer haut et fort mes idées et idéaux sans que je ne me fasse intimider de maintes manières ou que je ne sois traitée de ‘folle’ ou ‘d’hérétique’ – la chasse aux ‘sorcières’ vous dit quelque chose ?; divorcer sans être traitée de ‘pute’ ou de ‘destructrice de la famille’ ; etc.
La discrimination touche les femmes au Liban de leur naissance jusqu’à leur mort, à cause de lois qui vont du statut personnel (mariage, divorce, garde des enfants, héritage) à la loi sur la nationalité, en passant par le code pénal (les dispositions sur l’adultère notamment) et le droit du travail. La liste est longue, mais le sujet de mes propos en ce beau jour ensoleillé est celui de la transmission de la nationalité… En tant que Libanaise, je ne peux, si mariée à un ‘étranger’, lui transmettre ma nationalité. Je ne peux la transmettre à mes enfants. Lois discriminatoires, commissions ministérielle et parlementaire sexistes, société sclérosée, léthargie du peuple, ONGs certes actives mais opérant en tours d’ivoire … Les raisons sont nombreuses pour expliquer cette aberration, cette honte ! La meilleure en date ? La crainte du déséquilibre démographique qui minerait le système actuel de gestion de la diversité religieuse-confessionnelle libanaise et celle de voir nombre de palestiniens acquérir par le mariage la nationalité libanaise.
Heureusement que des mouvements pour les droits des femmes comme « Ma nationalité est un droit pour moi et pour ma famille » mènent des campagnes de conscientisation et soutiennent des femmes dans leurs batailles judiciaires. Malheureusement, leurs voix ne se font pas entendre… La mobilisation générale tant attendue dans le pays n’a pas encore eu lieu…
Pourtant, la Constitution libanaise énonce le principe d’égalité devant la loi pour tous, hommes et femmes. La loi sur la nationalité est ce qu’il y a de plus discriminatoire puisqu’elle rend les Libanaises, leurs époux et leurs enfants étrangers dans leur propre pays. Comment demander aux femmes de voter puisque citoyennes, mais en contrepartie, certaines d’entre elles sont réduites à l’état de ‘résidentes’ concernant l’accès à la santé, au travail ou la scolarité, découlant de l’interdiction de transmission de la nationalité ? N’étant pas libanais, les conjoints et les enfants doivent obtenir et renouveler des permis de résidence et de travail d’un coût élevé. Un décret datant de 2010 atténue toutefois les difficultés de cette situation en leur octroyant une « résidence de courtoisie » (iqâmat mûjâmala). Valide durant trois ans, elle leur évite de renouveler leur permis de séjour chaque année. De plus, alors que l’obtention d’une carte de séjour était conditionnée à l’obtention d’un emploi dès 18 ans, cette limite d’âge, ainsi que la nécessité d’un emploi, ont été levées. Cette initiative reste cependant largement insuffisante dans la mesure où elle ne donne pas aux personnes concernées plein accès aux droits politiques, civiques ou sociaux.
Autre paradoxe ? L’article premier de la loi sur la nationalité stipule que seuls sont considérés comme libanais les enfants de père libanais, alors que l’article 4 permet à une femme étrangère de donner la nationalité libanaise qu’elle aurait acquise par son mariage avec un Libanais aux enfants qu’elle aurait eu d’un premier mariage, un an après le décès de son mari libanais. Les femmes libanaises souffrent donc d’une double discrimination, par rapport aux hommes libanais, mais aussi par rapport aux femmes étrangères.
« Constitutives d’un lien juridique entre l’individu et l’État, les lois sur la nationalité se répartissent généralement en deux catégories relatives au droit du sang (primauté de la nationalité des parents) ou au droit du sol (primauté du lieu de naissance). Au-delà du sentiment d’appartenance, de sécurité et de protection qu’elle procure aux individus, la nationalité détermine leur capacité à exercer pleinement leurs droits citoyens. Nationalité et citoyenneté sont par conséquent intimement liés. Si la signification du terme « nationalité » peut être prise dans le jeu des oppositions sémantiques qui caractérisent la définition d’une « nation », elle est néanmoins constituée d’une série de critères concurrents mais plus ou moins communément admis : des critères « subjectifs » considérant la nationalité comme un « sentiment d’appartenance » à un groupe d’individus, par opposition à des critères « objectifs » selon lesquels la nationalité est perçue comme une appartenance codifiée juridiquement ».
Selon la sociologue Fahima Charafeddine, entre 1995 et 2008, 18 000 femmes, et par conséquent autant d’hommes, ainsi que plus de 40 000 enfants, ont été concernés par cette discrimination. Chiffres à l’appui, la sociologue assure que, pourtant, les mariages entre libanaises et non-libanais font apparaître une grande mixité. Et quoi qu’il en soit, rappelle Fahima Charafeddine, la « loi est discriminatoire à l’origine », puisqu’elle date de 1925, bien avant l’arrivée des réfugiés palestiniens à partir de 1948.
Récemment, d’autres pays arabes ont modifié leurs lois sur la nationalité dans le sens de l’égalité entre hommes et femmes, se conformant plus ou moins aux traités internationaux. Cela a été le cas en Egypte en 2004 (mais sans effet rétroactif et à l’exception des épouses de Palestiniens et de Soudanais), en Algérie en 2005, au Maroc en 2007 (pour les enfants mais pas pour le conjoint), en Tunisie (en 1994 puis 2000 avec la suppression de la conditionnalité de naître sur le territoire), en Libye, au Yémen et en Palestine en 2010. Dans ce contexte, le Liban paraît à la traîne des réformes en cours dans les pays avoisinants.
La question de la transmission de la nationalité par les femmes libanaises n’est pas une question marginale, secondaire. Elle est liée aux problématiques de la citoyenneté, de l’identité, de la gestion de la diversité, du confessionnalisme, du statut personnel, etc. A travers cette question et bien d’autres concernant les droits des femmes, les fondements même de la société libanaise et de son évolution sont interrogés.
Most Western Asian societies are struggling nowadays with social, political and economic crisis. They also suffer from diverse forms of discrimination (gender, religious, political, etc.) based partly on highly selective memories serving particular interests and ideological positions.
However, there are spaces of dialogue and conviviality, and gender equality cases. Just as memory and identity support one another, they also sustain certain subjective positions, social boundaries, and, of course, power. Every identity implies and at the same time masks a particular relationship. When one speaks of Western Asian women for example, one automatically refers to some never changing objective entity, but in fact one is participating in the process by which certain relationships among women called Western Asian and between them and others one calls the Europeans, Eastern Asian, African and Americans are constructed and sustained. One talks as if deprived of motherhood for example, or of their housekeeper status, or even of their ‘oppressed situation’, Western Asian women would cease to be Western Asian.
Womanhood in Western Asia cannot be summarized in ‘clichés’. It is a complex undergoing construction going back to thousands of years of a multiplicity of roles, situations, status, characteristics, values, visions and practices. Even what is called ‘patriarchal system’ or ‘patriarchal conditions’ vary. Some societies, religions and communities gave women a certain importance by tracing descendants from mothers rather than fathers (matrilineal societies). Others viewed and treated women as inferior and partly ornamental. Within ancient societies in Western Asia, patriarchal frameworks were usually the norms, still, examples of gender equality existed. In several ancient societies, many women could gain some relief through religious functions, which could provide a chance to operate independent of family structures. Still, other women internalized the culture of patriarchy, holding that it was their job to obey and to serve men and accepting arguments that their aptitudes were inferior to those of men. Patriarchal laws defined some rights for women even within marriage, protecting them in theory from the worst abuses, but the application of laws depended on many factors: social, political, economic, religious, tribal, etc.
In nowadays Western Asian societies, most women suffer from deficits in Human Rights. Societal norms that relegate women to subordinate status continue to impede progress. Governments remain resistant to addressing inequalities for women through progressive policy or legislation and often actively pursue policies of repression. Laws against marital rape and spousal abuse are largely absent in the region, so-called “honor” killings persist (except for Lebanon where it was recently banned), and segregation and discrimination remain part of the course in educational and political institutions.
Since 2010, women, alongside men, were actresses of protest/revolutionary movements that swept North African and Western Asian countries. They asked for the advent of democratic societies based on freedom, equality, justice and human rights’ respect. They, like men, paid and continue to pay a high price for that commitment. They should now be able to fully participate in the political life of their countries – especially in the decision making key positions. Women face the risk of forfeiture of a revolution that was also theirs. While all efforts are focused today on the collapse of regimes and the dismantling of the old state apparatus, the claims relating to women’s rights tend to be marginalized.
In this context of transition, where there is already a rise of conservative forces, it is more necessary than ever to take steps to establish full equality between men and women, indispensable foundation of democratic societies.
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Images: Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, by Dr. Pamela Chrabieh (2012). Lebanon
Many true stories about vindictive ex-spouses exist. I have heard about several men who have tried to destroy the reputation of their ex-wives with a ruthless and quite thorough assault on their public characters. These men have told lies to friends and family members, attempted to blackmail their former spouses by threatening to spread vicious lies about them, stolen money from them, tried to turn children against their mothers, become explosively angry, even physically violent when challenged, and have uniformly laid blame for the failure of the marriage at the feet of the ex-wife.
However, my story is about a vindictive husband. I currently live in Lebanon, following 7 years in Cairo, Egypt. My husband and I separated for a while – my decision – and were back together only few months after the legal separation. I loved him and couldn’t bear living without him. We had many issues to deal with; including different mindsets and family interference (this is current in Eastern Societies). Viciousness can be quite subtle and sometimes invisible to those who don’t know their man well. The word used by many psychotherapists to describe a man like this is ‘reptilian’: he seems so cold-blooded, without any genuine feeling for other people, and his desire to inflict pain or even destroy his current or former spouse seems inhuman, snake-like. At the same time, one tries to understand his psychology and what drives him. I tried to understand that my husband felt ashamed, his ego was hurt, his feelings too. Still, I was living in hell with him and he continuously inflicted pain (emotional, psychological) over the years.
When we went back together, he started going out with other women. He formed a clan with his parents against me. He wanted us to have children against my will. Back to hell, but this time, a different kind of hell… Worst… I had to run away…
There is another word to describe this kind of character: “vindictive narcissist”, who constructs an idealized and false self-image as a protection against shame, a kind of fortress behind which he conceals his shame, and will defend that self-image with every weapon in his arsenal. When a wife decides to leave a marriage, the narcissistic husband experiences it as a kind of attack (according to the law of false attribution): her rejection threatens to put him into contact with all the shame he can’t bear to feel, and so he must instantly turn against her. If he can’t literally destroy her, as some wounded narcissists have done, he will attempt to annihilate her character, for example, by painting himself as a martyr. The public humiliation he experiences when his wife asks for a divorce is a narcissistic injury so profound it provokes a retaliatory strike of nuclear proportions. That pain is felt as an attack, calling forth an all-out counter-assault meant to annihilate the threat to his fragile self-esteem.
Many individuals (men and women), when they feel hurt or humiliated, entertain fantasies of revenge. However, a vindictive narcissist can’t tolerate painful humiliation and the fantasy isn’t enough. He experiences the continuing reality of a woman who rejected him as a continual threat, a constant assault upon his ideal self-image; as a result, his defenses remain on continual alert against it. At the least provocation — that is, whenever shame threatens to emerge — he will viciously strike out, like a snake assaulting its prey. A vindictive narcissist is usually quite charming, having learned how to manipulate people to evoke their desire and sympathy.
Mothers too can be narcissistic with their children, especially with their boys, but that’s another story…
The word a�?feminista�? is being more and more associated with queer women, lesbians to be specific. And, what are lesbians known for? Answer: Hating men. So somewhere along the history of feminism, this link has been created and it has become hard to break this line of stereotypical thoughts.
In all feminist movements women are the main component; there is no question about that. But it seems that lately the a�?poster boya�? for feminism is the type of woman that stands against stereotypes. And with that has formed a new stereotype: the young, short haired, chubby, not interested in men kind of woman. So nowadays, when people hear the word a�?feminista�? they automatically picture an ugly and angry lesbian who hates men. This is how a big number of guys view feminism, because of a lack of awareness about the matter and also because initiatives are lost when they get personal. Any given argument can easily be lost when we raise our voice and step away from reason. Of course being passionate about a subject is important, but the line between rational and irrational is very thin when we are highly driven and emotional about it.
For a long time I refused to be called a feminist. I was in touch with feminist groups that I didna��t see eye to eye with. Their movement was just not my kind of feminism. Feminist is not a person who crushes men to elevate the status of women. Feminist is not a person who hates men simply because of the fact that they are men. Feminist is a person who believes in equality, real equality with no preference of one gender over the other. A man can be feminist too, and, not every man who claims he is only is doing so to try and fish women. A feminist man believes his sister can defend herself. A feminist man would respect the personal space of his female friends. This is my definition of real feminism. Ia��ve seen people start revolutions and then get lost in the many branches they want to expand to. With all due respect to every cause there is out there, we cana��t lose ourselves in all of them. Some of us have enough energy to spread, but the rest dona��t, and this rest is the majority that keeps losing track of all the movements that are rising day after day. Sadly, organizations and NGOs are falling into the same corporate ideals that they wanted to escape in the beginning. Ita��s all the same thoughts, same processes, same ideas and one way of execution. New ideas are only welcome if they are accepted by the elite members, and anybody who sheds some light on a different perspective is attacked and made to feel wrong.
a�?Agree to disagreea�? is a term that was once popular. But today, a�?with or againsta�? describes our situation better than any other term.
I thought of writing this article when a friend of mine told me her nationality (Eastern European) is labeled ‘only good for prostitution’ in certain Arab countries. I knew prostitution is an ancient reality in the Middle East, still, I wasn’t aware of the growing phenomenon of transnational prostitution and the stereotyping of nationality and ethnicity it created.
