A lecture on ‘Women’s Commitment in the Arab World’ AT USEK university

In coordination with the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO (LNCU), the Social Sciences Department at the School of Philosophy and Humanities, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, organized yesterday a lecture entitled ‘Women’s Commitment in the Arab World’. The purpose of the lecture was to shed light on the role of women as partners with men in building a community that respects human dignity and active citizenship. The event comes at a time women’s obligations have become more symbolic rather than human actions which help in bringing up a genuine non-sectarian society, as said the head of the Social Studies department, Professor Mirna Abbud Mizawak. Likewise, the LNCU secretary general, Zahida Jabbur, underlined the significant role of women in the Arab World despite “discriminatory traditions”. “It is time for women to strengthen  their presence, which in fact has started to develop as we can see in the steady increase in the number of women students at the various colleges, institutes and disciplines. At times, these numbers exceeded that of male students,” Jabbur said. For her part, Dr. Carol Andres Dissourn of LNCU, pointed out that women’s issues are part of the larger cause of humanity and cannot be “narrowed down to advocates of women who oppose men,” as she put it. “Many men have believed and still believe in women’s commitment to their society,” Dissourn said, adding, that the commitment of Arab women in particular is not new, but has a long history of struggle to attain their rights, and achieve citizenship and Pan-Arabism. (An Nahar, March 16, 2016)