My mother (Maha El Solh) would have been a great Arab leader if she wanted to. Anyone who knew her would agree. In the 50s, my mother founded the Arab club of Beirut, Lebanon. Her father (Adel El Solh) was the mayor of Beirut, her uncle (TekieDin El Solh) was the Prime Minister of Lebanon, and his cousin (Riad El Solh) was (along with Bechara El Khoury) the founding father of the state of Lebanon (Riad El Solh.) All who knew her argued that she was primed for greatness. She Graduated in 1950 with a degree in English from Beirut University College BUC and was both Class President and Home Coming queen.
One year before she passed away, I asked her; why has the Arab world not provided us with one notable women leader? Her response was that the men of the Arab world would never have agreed to follow a woman. As an example, she recalled that her founding of the Arab Club met with resistance from her supposedly progressive Brother Munah EL Solh. “My sister is meeting with men!” he told their father, who sat in at the next Club meeting and advised him not to get involved. So, chauvinism (even amongst progressive Arabs) was and remains prevalent. But I found her answer only half right because it assumed that women need male approval to lead. This’s never been confirmed in the 50s anywhere, not just in our world. Men all over the World have tried to marginalize women in politics, but nowhere have they been as successful as in our culture, so the fault must lie in both our men and women. Our men have pushed, and our women have not pushed back sufficiently.
I suspect that, though Arab male chauvinism is a part of the problem, it is not the whole problem. The other half, by necessity, must be Arab women’s acquiescence to the status quo. Mom eventually gave up her leadership role in The Arab Club, married my Syrian dad, and moved with him to Damascus, where she had my brother and me, raised a family, and abstained from politics. It is alleged that Syria gave women the right to vote before the United States of America and that the Syrian government had a female minister in it before the US cabinet had a single woman on board. If this is true, how come no one has ever heard of a Syrian woman leader since then? Yes, Arab men are more chauvinistic than most men, but Arab women have been co-conspirators in this debacle. By prioritizing family, marriage, and not pushing back, they willingly assigned themselves secondary roles, roles that deprived us of leadership.
One hundred million people over 100 years have only produced one female fighter of note; Jamila BuHayrad. This is a statistical anomaly. An anomaly that could explain why the Arab World has been going in circles: A rowboat in the water, with one ore, cannot move ahead. When you marginalize half your population, you cannot expect anything but inefficiency and malaise for a century. As guilty as our men have been, our women (by acts of grave omission) have been equally guilty. Sure, roles one can point to great Syrian and Lebanese women who led great philanthropic organizations and pioneered in governmental and social endeavors, but that’s not the subject of this essay. The issue is, why have none of them risen to political prominence? Why have their stories not been highlighted? Most importantly, why have their efforts not given ample reason for political advancement on the world stage? Where are our Indira Ghandis, Benizar Bhuttos, Margrett Thatchers, Angele Merkels, and Ilham Al Ahmad?
To illustrate my point, I want to introduce you to Lina Murad, MD. My political leader, and my candidate to lead a gender-equal future in Syria. Lina has spent the last ten years of her life educating a medical cadre in Northwest Syria. Her time, money, and efforts provided the region with hundreds of paramedical professionals. Workers who filled an enormous gap in this non-regime-dominated sector of Syria. Lina like my mom before her has had many a brush with our innate chauvinism. Recently, she visited the Northeast of Syria, and the gender disparity between the East and the West became apparent to her. At her last meeting prior to returning to Washington DC, she brought together her physician pupil and a representative of a covid-19 vaccine company. When the question of where the vaccines should be administrated arose, her protégé suggested mosques. When she asked, “but where will the women then be vaccinated?” his dismissive comment was, “They are tahsil hasil” (It will come, when it comes).
Women like Lina Murad and Maha ElSolh exist amongst us, they just chose the path of silence in the face of discrimination directed at women. It’s time our women fight back. Gender equality is not just a trite slogan of the world we are being dragged into, kicking, and screaming; it’s an absolute necessity of this age. It is high time that Arab women select amongst themselves a leader. It is high time we Arab men get out of our women’s way and allow them to lead us in numbers proportionate to their representation in our population. It’s not like our male-dominated societies are flourishing without their help. The case can be made; it’s the opposite of that. Lebanon is going bankrupt, Syria has imploded, the Arab world is in near chaos, and the solution must come from our women. They must go against their men folks’ wishes. and rebel against their fathers, husbands, and sons. Our women, not our men, must lead us into the 21st-century.
