Women in Lebanon: Revolution vs. Law
By: Rebecca Ego
Tags: Domestic Violence, Feminism, Lebanese Politics, Beirut, Revolution

Women in Lebanon: Revolution vs. Law

Female protestors at Riad El Soleh Square, Beirut.

BEIRUT: Lebanese women gained international recognition on their rebellious role in the Lebanese October revolution. Within days since the beginning of anti-government protests in the nation, women began voicing their demands loud and clear.

It all began when Malak Alawiye, now referred to as “kick queen”, kicked an armed bodyguard of one of the Lebanese ministers during the first few days of the revolution. The image of the kick went viral across social media platforms, only to become an icon of the revolution and an incentive to encourage women to hit the streets.

It was a time to seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only to overthrow a 30-year-old government that ruled with corruption, nepotism and embezzlement of public funds, but also the means of overthrowing a sectarian regime with oppressive laws against women.

The women in the streets who would stand in the frontline as barricaders between the protestors and the security forces and would light up candles and conduct peaceful marches in tense and violent areas, were the same women who would cry helplessly in front of courthouses after losing custody over their children, get beaten up by their spouses behind closed doors with no access to legal protection, inherit less than their male siblings, or get married at 15.

It was as if these women were not the same. In the law, they were weak and vulnerable, yet on the streets they were tough and rebellious.

A woman protestor stares at a woman Security Officer. (via The Independent)

This was all due to a sectarian legal system which, to this day, discriminates against women in their most basic rights.

Today, Lebanon does not have a unified minimum legal marital age. It remains legal to marry a girl as young as 9 years old for some sects. The Palestinian state, just south of the Lebanese border, and with similar ethnic and religious roots to Lebanon, enacted a law only days ago that establishes the legal marital age at 18 years old.

Lebanese women do not hold the right to pass on their Lebanese citizenship to their children, despite the ongoing initiatives for the enactment of this law.

Lebanese women do not enjoy equality with their male siblings or other women belonging to different sects in matters of inheritance and will, nor in matters of divorce and child custody, all of which show preference and priority to males.

Lebanese women still are victims of domestic violence, with more than 31% of women experiencing this violence by their spouses, according to a study conducted by KAFA, a local NGO fighting domestic abuse.

“honor crimes” still exist as a legal excuse in the Lebanese Penal Code to decrease punitive measures on men who commit intentional homicide on women of their family for the purpose of “honor”.

Lebanese women are still victims of a patriarchal society that takes advantage of women’s reluctance to speak up in order to cover up crimes of rape, especially marital rape which remains legal.

On the political scene, the political representation of women remains one of the lowest in the region, with only 6 out of 128 members of parliament, and 4 out of 30 ministers, placing Lebanon at rank 140 out of 149 in the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Gender Gap report.

Notwithstanding their vulnerability under the law, Lebanese women have proven their strong leadership and ability to defy social standards and ask for their most basic rights.

The overthrowing of a traditional, sectarian system, under which clergymen and religious figures hold the highest prerogative of countering laws and amendments that promote gender equality, serves as an additional motive for Lebanese women’s rebellion.