Being a woman in Lebanon is as challenging as it can get. With many feminist initiatives and civic movements taking on their stand in support of women, it is still not the easiest to be a woman in a country with gender-bias laws and societal mindset.
The overlapping and intersecting layers of discrimination emanating from the legal, political, social, and economic structures combine to make women the most vulnerable to oppression and discrimination.
Ever since the Lebanese 17 October ignited 56 days ago, the vital role of women in all aspects of our society and country’s governance is being recognized and stressed upon.
Lebanese women have demonstrated their resilience, determination, wisdom, constructive focus, strength and peacefulness in delivering the messages they and their country need.
Lebanese women have long fought for a women quota that differs from minority quote yet is as important. This is in no way to undermine the importance of minorities but to state a crucial yet long dismissed as irrelevant fact in our country:
Lebanese women constitute a majority of our society with all that it entails of active citizens. It is but rightful that they assume governmental positions in numbers at least equal to men.
That is what the initiative called FiftyFifty is now moving towards and in a clever method void of nepotism and political influence.
FiftyFifty campaign demands not only to have women in the formation of the new government but to bring in Lebanese women proven successful in their fields to share half of the seats of the new government.
FiftyFifty started the #WomenToSaveLebanon campaign to shed light on competent Lebanese women working in different fields so that they can get to be part of the government that current political leaders are supposed to form.
The competencies of women include several fields, including economy, environment, oil and gas, public policies and strategies, media and law, human rights, and other fields of expertise that Lebanon desperately needs to get out of its ordeal.
FiftyFifty stresses the importance of equity in all fields and the participation of women and men in managing the country’s affairs to get Lebanon out of its current crisis.
This campaign launched on social media leads you to a list of names and pictures of expert Lebanese women on the FiftyFiftyLb website where you can click on the images for their CVs and get to know their capabilities.
Since the formation of a new technocrat government is a priority in the demands of the revolution, and for us to move on and forward, it is worth you check out the women of expertise and achievements proposed by the FiftyFifty civic movement to partake equally in the new government.