Now Lebanon’s Haeon Lee joined Nasawiya’s International Women’s Day march on Monday night, and blogged about the experience on the news outlet’s website.

Read her post entitled “We take back the night… for ALL our rights!” here.

Our members Leen Hashem and Sara Abu Ghazal contributed articles on sexual harassment (Juanito, the Neighborhood “Jagal” – Player) and racism and sexism in Lebanon (Lebanon and Women: Types of Female Citizens and Their Uses) respectively.

Also, as part of the tie-in, Nasawiya supporters Zeina Zaatari (Program Officer for the Middle East and North Africa at the Global Fund for Women) and As’ad Abu Khalil a.k.a. The Angry Arab (Political Science Professor at California State University, Stanislaus and Visiting Professor at UC, Berkeley) shared some of their thoughts on women’s issues and feminism.

Ms. Zaatari wrote a commentary on Arab women’s work entitled “Notes on Arab Women’s Work”.

Mr. Abu Khalil reflected on International Women’s Day in an opinion piece entitled “International Women’s Day… Why?”

On April 23, 2009, the Feminist Collective blogged about the recent “Sois Belle et Vote” (Look Pretty and Vote) billboard campaign that sprouted across Lebanon in the past week. The blog is entitled Top 12 Reasons Why the Billboard Campaign: “Sois Belle et Vote” Is Offensive to Women. The post, which quickly spread over facebook and in the blogosphere, created much controversy around the sexism portrayed in the campaign.

Menassat.com featured an article today that speaks more about the Feminist Collective’s opinion of the ad. Read it here: http://www.menassat.com/?q=en/news-articles/6423-be-beautiful-and-vote

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- March 12 Al-Hayat:النسوية لمناصرة اللبنانية في الميدان

- March 11 Daily Star: Sit-ins look to highlight gender discrimination

- March 8 Al-Safir: المجموعة النسوية تسأل و إمرأة تجاوب

- March 7 Al Mustaqbal: النسوية تخترق شوارع بيروت في يوم المرأة:
لا للتمييز والعنف والقوانين الجائرة

- March 8 Al-Mustaqbal: النسوية تتابع حملة يوم المرأة: لسنا ضد الرجال بل ضد الذكورية

- March 8 Now Lebanon: A Woman’s Place?

- March 6 Daily Star: Feminists Take Aim at Male-Centered Politics

- March 5 Al-Akhbar: في يوم المرأة هيّا إلى الشارع

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Feminist Collective takes aim at male-centered politics

By James Goodman
Special to The Daily Star
Friday, March 06, 2009

Article Link: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_…

BEIRUT: “We don’t like to admit it,” says my interlocutor, “but Lebanon is a deeply prejudiced society. It is racist, sexist and classist.” In response to the intolerant environment in which they found themselves, Nadine, an American University of Beirut graduate who is currently studying for a master’s in philosophy, and a group of friends started to think about how they could begin to address some of these issues. Their efforts resulted in the establishment this January of the Feminist Collective, the first group of its kind in Lebanon.

Though primarily focused on gender issues, namely sexism and heterosexism, the Feminist Collective has a broad agenda, which proposes an integrated approach to feminism by promoting it alongside other axes of understanding, including race, class, religious and ethnic lines.

Moreover, far from restricting itself to the basic feminist goals of promoting equal rights to citizenship and pay and protection from violence and discrimination, the group illustrates its comprehensive approach by citing disability rights, environmentalism and ethical consumerism among its fundamental causes.

One of the primary motivations to begin the project was a view of Lebanese public life as highly male-centered.

Lebanese politics, Nadine asserts, is dominated by powerful families who are not concerned with the interests of ordinary people, in which the politicians play a game of fear, scaring ordinary people with the phantom of sectarian violence in order to maintain their grip on the mechanisms of power.

“The vast majority of our current leaders are men,” she continues, “even the few women who reach power only do so through their associations with powerful men. Once in power these women continue making the same mistakes as their male relatives. Lebanon has reached a stage where these families are so deeply entrenched that nobody believes anybody else is capable of independent success in politics.”

The Feminist Collective maintains that in addition to the political sphere, society is also a front in the struggle for gender justice in Lebanon. Nadine argues that from a young age, Lebanese women are inundated with expectations of the female body that adhere to certain beauty norms: blonde, straight hair; small, neat noses; large lips and flat stomachs. Under the weight of tremendous social pressure to conform to gender stereotypes, women suffer huge damage to their self-esteem. This is exacerbated, Nadine believes, by the complete lack of discussion around these issues.

To address this gap, the Feminist Collective are seeking to re-engage the debates around women’s issues in Lebanon by, on one hand, bringing the idea of women’s sexual rights back to the public consciousness. This can be achieved, they believe, by spreading awareness and promoting debate about sexual health, sexual education in schools and sexual harassment. Through opening up a dialogue around these focal issues they hope to encourage women to be more aware of the various forces at play in determining gender norms and expectations. In turn, they hope that such a dialogue will enable women to explore different ways in which they can reassert their agency in order to bring about positive change in their lives.

On the other hand, Nadine hopes that the Feminist Collective can start to address the problem of political disempowerment among women in Lebanon. She notes that women make up more than 50 percent of the population of Lebanon and that, if they chose to wield their collective power, could possess considerable political clout. The Feminist Collective is convinced that, along with the empowerment of women in politics per se, the mainstreaming of core feminist values such as equality, solidarity and critical engagement with multi-faceted mechanisms of oppression is the key to breaking away from the endless cycles of sectarian squabbling that continue to mire Lebanese society.

With elections fast approaching on the horizon, Nadine hopes that by sowing the seeds of a feminist movement, politicians will be obliged to take women’s issues more seriously.

The Feminist Collective is vigorously backing a bill proposed by the NGO Kafa that aims to give women protection against domestic violence. This bill is in the initial stages of the legislative process, and the group believe that mobilizing popular support for the bill will increase the chances of the political elite approving it. In the future, Nadine hopes that women’s issues will occupy a prominent position in national politics and that, eventually, independent candidates will stand for election on a feminist platform.

Though such hopes are long-term, the Collective is presently focusing its energies on more immediate goals. This Saturday, members will be out on the streets of Beirut in the run-up to International Women’s Day, Sunday March 8. Feminist activists, both men and women, will be dispatched in small groups at 12 different locations around Beirut, seeking to spread awareness of gender issues by asking women to speak about the topics that they feel most affect them in Lebanon today.

Although she is not expecting any miracles, Nadine believes that the project will start to encourage women to think about the things they have in common with other women and to alert them to the potential that they have as group. The Feminist Collective hope to reach around 2,000 women this weekend, but ultimately their goal is many more. “We are hoping to create a buzz,” Nadine admits, “to get people discussing these issues with family or friends.”

By the same token, Nadine reasserts the multi-ethnic and non-sectarian character of the Collective, maintaining that there are common values that transcend those assumed divisions which can be disseminated to the wider community.

Nadine is optimistic about the project. “Feminism isn’t going away and feminists are going to continue to push their agenda. It may sound radical to a lot of people, but we believe that it is the only agenda that is able to make change happen. Change won’t come from a political party and the same old politics, it will come from young, dedicated feminists.”

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في يوم المرأة هيّا إلى الشارع!

أما مبادرة «المجموعة النسوية» في لبنان، فستأخذ شكلاً أكثر نضاليّاً، وأكثر ميدانيّة. لا تكتفي هذه المجموعة الراديكاليّة بـ«الاحتفال» بالمناسبة، بل ترى أن ما أنجز على طريق المساواة وحقوق المرأة في لبنان والمنطقة العربيّة ما زال قليلاً، لكي لا نقول معدوماً في بعض الحالات…

Read the full article here: http://www.al-akhbar.com/ar/node/121970

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