Tag Archives: Women Rights

Lebanese MP Elie Marouni Blames Lebanese Women For Getting Raped

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She was asking for it is the excuse of every sexual predator out there to justify his insatiable thirst in violating the body of a woman who was not asking for it.

She was wearing a skirt too tight or too short. Her blouse was too revealing. She was flirting. Anything a woman does that can be interpreted in that rapist’s brain as an advance is considered as her “asking for it” without her being as such at all.

Now how about that mentality perpetuating in the mind of yet another misogynistic Lebanese who not only  has a wide platform to speak from, but also has the job to make sure women are a protected entity in society by legislating the laws for that purpose.

Zahle Kataeb MP Elie Marouni decided that standing up for women rights was not something on his agenda nor was it something he’s probably willing to entertain. Keep in mind, this man is responsible for making sure women are protected when they are raped, when they’re victims of domestic violence, just to name a few.

In a recent press conference (link), Marouni was not a fan of allowing Lebanese women to grant their nationality to their children. Why? Because we have a lot of Palestinians and Syrians (also known as very scary Muslims) who would “change the country’s demographics.”

That wasn’t the best part, however. When asked about the Lebanese penal code law that stipulates that a rapist can marry his victim whereby absolving him of his crime. His reply was as follows: “In some instances, one has to wonder about the woman that pushes a man to rape her. Thank you!”

He was thankful for the applause he got. Some of that applause was probably out of women as well for that horrifying statement. Yes, because it’s that unfathomable for Marouni apparently that a man should probably keep it in his pants until the woman “pushing” him says yes.

A feminist activist rose up to the occasion on the spot and chastised him for his statement, saying she was “ashamed” to have someone like him represent her in parliament. Marouni was then “offended” that she was ashamed.

“If only that woman whose name I don’t know and I don’t want to know who objected in such an offensive way had waited until the end of the conference to see how many women had taken their picture with me.”

Yes, because people posing for pictures with you is exactly the standard by which one judge’s your sexism and misogyny. That sad moment when a Lebanese MP is more taken aback by the fact that someone challenged his backward dogma than by the fact he thinks it’s okay in some cases for men to rape women in 2016.

Dear Mr. Marouni, I’m also ashamed to have you as a Lebanese MP, legislating (or not) on my behalf in any function, being a person who does not understand that people’s sanctity is holy. Also, being ashamed at you is not “offending” you. It’s probably the most courteous thing one could tell you at such a statement given the circumstances.

Why don’t you think about your female relatives for once? Put yourself in their shoes if only for a moment to see how despicable it is for their brother, their son, etc.. to say that them being violated can sometimes be justified or that they can sometimes be blamed for having a man force himself on them.

Mr. Marouni, this is the discourse in which you are taking away a woman’s right to her own body away from her, like almost every other right in this God forsaken country that has been taken away from those same women you believe can be sometimes blamed for being raped.

I fail to see how anyone such as you can be trusted to come up and defend laws that defend every single Lebanese person in any aspect. Granted, you are doing none of that, but in the hypothetical scenario that you might, how am I supposed not to be ashamed that the laws of my country are being ratified by men with such a mentality?

But please, by all means, keep on thinking women posing for pictures with you is enough justification for you thinking they’re open season.

 

Lebanese TV Reporter Doesn’t Think Women Are Good Enough To Run For Elections

The saga of Lebanese women and high profile people who think they are not worthy of things that are their right continues, and this time it’s with Ali Noureddine, a reporter on conservative Hezbollah-affiliated TV Al-Manar. A few days ago, a beauty queen whose rise to prominence was solely due to her sex appeal decided women should not engage in premarital sex, but that men should. I guess Ali and Nadine would fit well in the circle of people taking Lebanese women back eons.

Ali Nour Eddine doesn’t think women are good enough to run for elections and take on political work. Why? Because she’s supposed to “stay home, finish her chores and then come preach.” Why? Because “religions have never had female prophets or female philosophers.” Why? Because “it’s not her job nor is it her capacity.”

What would the female presenters at Al Manar say to a person like Ali Nour Eddine when they’ve been leading the news reports for years? What would Ali’s mother tell him when he’d look her in the eye and tell her that she is not good enough? What would all those mothers who gave birth to all of Ali’s employer’s martyrs say when he tells them that they are good enough?

I wonder, how can Ali Nour Eddine look all his women teachers in the eye, over the years, and tell them that they are not good enough just because they were not born with a penis between their legs.

Ali Nour Eddine seems to forget that women have had a role in religion. Has he forgotten about Mariam? Has he forgotten about Khadija or Aisha or Zainab? If you want to be religious in your argument, read your own religion.

Either way, since when is religion the indicator of whether a gender should be allowed to enter politics or not? Even Saudi Arabia has allowed women to vote, and run, and thousands of them have and won. Ali Nour Eddine’s mentality is worse than that.

If the only thing you know of women Mr. Ali Nour Eddine is for them to cook for you, open their legs for you, clean for you, and do whatever you think is right and whatever it is you want, then not only are you mistaken, but you’re just another Lebanese man who has made it his duty to subjugate the other sex into nothing more than a shell of a person whose entire purpose is to serve him.

Let me tell you, Ali, about my Lebanese women.

They are people who want to seek office, and change lives for the women you’ve ruined. They’re people like the 12 courageous souls that ran with Beirut Madinati less than 3 weeks ago and changed Beirut’s political landscape alone.

They are people like my own mother who has never let a man put her in place, who has shown she can stand up for herself and more in a world solely run by men.

They are people like Therese, who is running alone for elections in my hometown Ebrine and who wants to show women that yes, they can also do so.

They are our school teachers, and our professors who shape our lives with their knowledge and kindness like few men can.

They are the people who have fought for women to be protected from men who think like you, who think that women are second class citizens who can be forced to bed whenever they want, who can be slammed around just because they can, and managed to pass a law to give those women a fighting chance.

They are the women fighting for better electoral laws to make sure that there’s more than single digit percentages of them seeking office, to make sure that the numbers don’t agree with you, to make sure that you are wrong in every single way.

They are the women who make me proud to be Lebanese when I’m horrified that I share the country with people like you, and people who “like” what you have to say.

As of writing this, Ali Nour Eddine has deleted his status, but social media always remembers.

 

Nadine Njeim Takes Lebanese Women Back 100 Years: Men Should Have Premarital Sex, But Not Women

Nadine Njeim

Former Lebanese beauty queen and current actress Nadine Njeim recently gave an interview to a program on Future TV in which she was asked about sex for men and women in society.

The conversation went as follows (my translation follows the video):

Reporter: Suppose your son turned 18 and said he wants to sleep with a girl he loves. What would you say?

Nadine: Go for it, certainly. He’s a man!

R: You allow a man but not a woman to do so?

N: Yes! He’s a man. If a man doesn’t get experience, he will be a 40 year old who won’t satisfy his wife. Marriage shouldn’t happen early for a man in my books.

R: But Nadine, religion equates men and women in that they are both not supposed to engage in premarital sex.

N: Yes, I agree. But at the end of the day, this is a boy. Boys have no flaws. You can’t tell a boy not to do such things. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t mature. You feel he has a weak personality if he doesn’t sleep or date women. Sex or no sex, love or not, fun or not. This is a boy. He needs to have his adventures in order to grow.

R: You’re saying this as a girl with a strong personality.

N: Yes, I’m not with equality between men and women.

R: Why?

N: I want women to stay women. If they equate me with a man, I’d feel like a man. I don’t want to. I want to stay a woman.

If you thought we were moving away from such conversation, think again.

I wonder which vagina Nadine Njeim’s son is supposed to penetrate in order to grow and be a “man” in all the Arab, patriarchal sense of the word that she means if she does not want women to have sex too.

It’s such a shame to see a woman with her status and reach set back women in the country and the region eons in their struggle for equality, starting with the most important liberation of all: their bodies. When Nadine Njeim insists that women should not engage in sexual activity but men should for whichever reasons she cites, she is inherently demeaning her gender as entities that are not allowed to enjoy their bodies, seek out the same “growth” she wants for their penis-equipped counterparts in society and, well, become strong and independent and whatever comes with sexual liberation in a society that thrives on sexual oppression of women and men alike.

At a time when we’re fighting tooth and nail to give Lebanese women a much-needed advantage in our societies, be it in laws, political representation or simply advancing them in places where they’ve been subdued for years, it’s a shame to see one of those women take such a public stance against her own gender, and to have that woman have a megaphone as big as Nadine Njeim’s.

By proclaiming that men and women should not be allowed to have the same experiences, Nadine Njeim is inherently approving of the fact that men should have an upper hand when it comes to other aspects as well. It’s not a far stretch to assume the gender that is allowed, according to her, to sleep around before marriage would also be allowed to hold a prerogative after marriage, such as forcing his wife to have sex even when she doesn’t want to or beating her into submission because she dared oppose him.

It starts with sex. Other matters of male and female equality will fall into play as well: job opportunities, careers, salaries, economic independence. Perhaps Ms. Njeim needs to be told that women wanting better, achieving more and seeking out their own pleasures, whichever those may be, does not mean they are becoming men, but rather fulfilling everything that them being women entails?

For a woman who has made millions playing strong independent women in horrid soap operas, she sure does not do that in real life. Someone give her an Oscar for going so hard against her grain.

I pity the daughter who’s gonna have her as a mother. She may inherit her mother’s good looks, but that mentality will not get her to the places she deserves to get to.

Lebanese women, don’t listen to Ms. Njeim. You deserve more than what she wants you to get.

Edit: Nadine N. Njeim explained herself in the following way:

via Lebanese Memes on Instagram.


It’s horrific she thinks this is an enough excuse for her objectifying of women, turning them into nothing more than pleasure toys for her son.

Lebanese Policeman Physically Assaults a Woman For Stopping at a Red Light & Ends Up Innocent Anyway

The series of horrifying violations to our right as people from those who are in power in this wonderful country continues.

We’ve all been driving or in cars and suddenly find ourselves boxed in by a convoy for some politician who decides that his right of passage, as are the rest of his rights, more important than yours; who decides that your car and safety are irrelevant and who has no problem in killing you to make sure he gets his way, literally.

The mode of management for these convoys is to avoid them. You see those dark, tinted SUVs approaching and you run the opposite way. They are barbaric, lawless people who hold the rule of law in their hands: there’s nothing you can do just deal with it.

In fact, even the new driving law will NOT be applied to these convoys. Why? Because the government won’t apply a law on itself, but will screw you over again and again for your money so they can play house, not legislate, not vote for a president, not run the country and still take away your rights whenever they can.

Lawyer Rania Ghaith was stuck at a red light on Monday in front of one of those convoys at the Qantari intersection that leads up to Hamra. The convoy in question behind her was for our minister of internal affairs Mr. Nouhad el Machnouk.

 

The policeman at the intersection was telling Rania to run the red light and break the law so the convoy can pass. She stood her own and waited. When the light turned green, she let the convoy pass and would have been on her way hadn’t that policeman, who was NOT a traffic policeman and as such had no place to regulate traffic, pulled her over.

What happened next was not him simply writing her a ticket.

It was him pulling Rania out of her car, by her hair, and assaulting her physically in the middle of the street.

Unfortunately no one filmed the incidence but there were plenty of eyewitnesses. The physician’s report of Rania’s condition immediately following the incident also confirmed that she was the victim of a physical assault.

The ironic part is that the convoy was just a decoy.

This isn’t the full story, sadly.

Rania filed a lawsuit against the officer in question immediately, and the preliminary trial was today. In that trial, the overseeing judge in Military Court Hani Al-Hajjar did not, according to MTV:

  1. Ask for the physician’s report on Rania’s condition,
  2. Did not call for eyewitness testimony,
  3. Did not let Rania Ghaith testify.

As such, the judge decided that the man was innocent and could be released. He did not pay any bail, and the Lebanese Syndicate of Lawyers has not taken any steps in trying to defend the rights of one of their own.

 

Of course, this shouldn’t come as a shock in a country of no law, misogyny, and in the presence of people who think they are always above the law and who have no problem in making sure you know it at every single second of every day.

Not only was that policeman breaking the law by operating at that intersection, he also violated the law by assaulting a Lebanese citizen whose only fault was standing at a red light, respecting her country’s law at a time when he didn’t want that.

That policeman, whose name we unfortunately don’t know, violated Rania as a Lebanese, as a woman, as a citizen who respects the law, as a simple human being who should NOT be assaulted because the policeman had a testosterone rush because a woman defied him. And what’s worse, Lebanon’s military court – the same one that found Michel Samaha not *that* guilty – has now declared him innocent.

How long should Lebanese citizens, women and men, be the victims of the whims of policemen who know they have no reason to break our rights, our bones, our spine because they will get away with it anyway? How much proof do we need to get rid our streets of such elements that only serve to endanger us? What would have happened had that policeman been a bit angrier? Would he have shot Rania because she didn’t break a red light?

Does anyone even hear how silly it is to have a headline that goes: Policeman assaults woman because she stopped at a red light?

Let me take this a step further: how horrifying is it that this policeman not only assaulted that woman for not breaking the law, but has been declared innocent and is back on the streets, ready to attack other women, and other people on a whim?

Mr. Nouhad el Machnouk: You should not accept such a thing to pass by unnoticed. Your convoys, and those of every single politician in this country, are not more important than our well-being, than rights, our existence. You should not accept for Rania Ghaith to become yet another victim of abuse by those who are above the law, and who have the political backing to spit in her face during her trial: “If I were in my friend’s place, I would’ve torn you to pieces.”

This is not a country, this is a jungle.

Rania Ghaith, I hope you get your justice sooner rather than later.

MTV Lebanon Produces Music Video for Women Rights with Participation of MP Sethrida Geagea

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MTV has recently unveiled their latest contribution to the current legislative efforts for a law to protect women from all forms of abuse, notably marital rape, soon after International Women’s Day.
To help them advocate for such a cause, they’ve enlisted the help of the female MP who has probably worked the most for such a law to see the light: Sethrida Geagea.

Geagea’s role in the music video is perhaps minimal but it’s a reflection of her commitment to the cause at hand, which brings me back to a point I had mentioned previously: the only way for the women of Lebanon to have true influence is to assert political power, which can only be achieved by voting in more women to parliament, who need to be as energetic and feisty about their rights as MP Geagea is and not a corresponding puppet to the political block they’re part of.