A Strategy for the Integration of Arab Women in the Arab Unity Movement

opportunities for education is more noticeable in rural districts. The enrollment of girl students is in inverse proportion to the class level. However a certain progress has been made on the lJ'1iversity level when the proportion of university students in Arab countries rose from 24 % in 1971 to 28% In 1976. In Kuwait it reached 63%, and in Qatar 67%, but only 5% of the graduates are engaged in professional activities. Surprisingly. vocational training is equally limited. Only 4-15% of Arab women receive vocational training, which is generally restricted to sewing, teaching, nursing and secretarial work. Various causes lie behind this condition. Society is apprehensive regarding woman's education and vocational training because they seem to threaten her traditional role for early marriage and fertility. Woman's upbringing directs her towards homemaking. Thus, education is considered a pastime and work is temporary. Therefore, if a woman is conditioned to lack strength and faith in herself, her life revolves around the male members of her family.

opportunities for education is more noticeable in rural districts.
The enrollment of girl students is in inverse proportion to the class level. However a certain progress has been made on the lJ'1iversity level when the proportion of university students in Arab countries rose from 24 % in 1971 to 28% In 1976. In Kuwait it reached 63%, and in Qatar 67%, but only 5% of the graduates are engaged in professional activities.
Surprisingly. vocational training is equally limited. Only 4-15% of Arab women receive vocational training, which is generally restricted to sewing, teaching, nursing and secretarial work.
Various causes lie behind this condition. Society is apprehensive regarding woman's education and vocational training because they seem to threaten her traditional role for early marriage and fertility. Woman's upbringing directs her towards homemaking. Thus, education is considered a pastime and work is temporary. Therefore, if a woman is conditioned to lack strength and faith in herself, her life revolves around the male members of her family.

Economic Development Creates New Needs
Recent economic development in the region has created new professions, industrialization has made new demands on woman's work in Arab countries. Emigration of young men from less privileged regions to the oil countries has obliged women to replace men as household providers.
To encourage woman's involvement in labor, the following aids are necessary: First, the government should create a favorable atmosphere for woman's integration in development through: Utilization of mass media; preparation of statistics and reports about it ; providing equipment and human cadres for the planning and excecution of laws; amending the labor code and the laws regarding maternity leaves in favor of women.
Secondly, joint efforts among industrialists , government and syndicates should succeed in creating nurseries and kindergartens for the children of working women; also they should encourage return to work by women after the expiration of maternity leave. In some cases, women's work could be organized in a way that allows its rotation between two of them, thus allowing them to benefit from a part time job which does not interfere with their household duties. In many cases, the father's and the children's sharing in housework permits the mother to keep her double task of housekeeper and career woman.
Thirdly, the syndicates' role in solving the working woman's problems should concentrate on two things: Helping her to occupy leadership roles; and, putting an end to discrimination against her in matters of salary and promotion.
A Strategy for the Integration of Arab Women in the Arab Unity Movement(l) Women's participation in the Arab national movement has taken a passive and marginal aspect and her role in national organization has been that of a follower. Revolutionary slogans raised by Arab progressive socialist parties, which aimed to do away with exploitation in all its forms, remained a dead letter.
Throughout their recent history, women have been excluded from political activity. Feminine organizations created in post-revolutionary periods reflected the influence of the ruling class. In the early part of this century they consisted of wives of pashas and other high dignitaries. Later on , they included the wives of the military. Even so, their role was restricted to charity works. Their number was highly limited; their aim was to support programs initiated by men.
The ruling class in Arab countries refuses to recognize the existence of a sexual conflict. Political leaders concentrate on class struggle ; they pretend that women do not form a class by themselves, since they are natural partners to men in family and society. This means that they should be followers and have no right to form a party or to acquire political power.
International imperialism, which tries to spread its international effectiveness by enforcing free trade and economy, aims at the same time, and through calculated plans, to wipe out national and local culture in developing countries. While it preaches unity of mankind, religions, and cultures, actually it tries to oppose local unity movements such as Arab unity. It encourages religious and sectarian division with the aim of using religion in its reactionary form as a power against progressive movements.
The Arab women's movement today should beware of submitting to these tactics of imperialism. It should not aim at fighting religion per se, but it should fight its exploitation for subversive ends. This movement must include not only bourgeois women but also those of the laboring masses.

Reinvestigation of Arab History
A rereading of Arab history will show that a militant, progressive trend permeates its pages since early Islamic days. Women who embraced Islam in the Prophet's day, claimed the same rights as Muslim (I) SUmmary of a paper presented by Dr. Nawal Saadawi at the Seminar 01 the Center lor Arab Unity Studies: 21-24 September, 1981 , Beirut, Lebanon (See elsewhere in this issue).
( SEMINAR men. Consequentty, special reference to them was made in the Koran, such as: "Muslim men and women", "Men and women believers", Aisha, the Prophet's favorite wife, used to argue with him about certain questions and protest against some of his decisions, even if they were religiously confirmed.
Muslim women took part in political as well as in military and cultural activities.

Meaning of Democracy
~ True democracy means equality and close associa-' tion between leadership and infrastructure in the process of planning and decision-making. Women's problems do not relate only to their inability to read and write. There is also political ignorance and a whole past of oppression which has resulted in deforming their nature. All this has led many of them to enjoy masochism and hero-worship of their enslavers. A democratic women's movement should struggle to free women from mental slavery. It is not enough to claim political, social and economic freedom without freeing the soul , thus breaking inner chains.
The chief defect of Arab revolutions has been the monopoly of authority by a minority group, while the majority, including women, were forbidden to rebel. The ruling minority understands its function as a political dictatorship, allowing its members to impose their will and banish all opposition.

Injustices of the Patriarchal System
This system which gives men complete control of the family, weighs on women not only in capitalistic countries but also in socialist ones. According to this system, women and children are the property of the male (father or husband) and, as such, he has the right to handle them in whatever way he likes. Family honor is exclusively the man's honor. If the woman defiles it by misconduct, she incurs the penalty of death. The same property right permits him to make her work in his house and in his field freely, without any remuneration except food and lodging. It is such injustice that women's organizations should fight independently from political parties dominated by men, too many of whom are totally unmindful of woman's problems.

The Family System, a Factor of Woman's Enslavement
The family is to most people a sacred institution which should not be touched. When an emancipated woman tries to free herself from family duties and to 10 ) practice an independent profeSSion, she is accused of encroaching on man's rights and of trying to assault the sacredness of the family system. Critics ignore the fact that this system has lived on woman's slavery and has been responsible for many family tragedies. To treat family problems women must organize as a separate group and find the way of making marriage laws more just and humane. Equal rights must be given to them in all aspects of family life. Divorce should not be the husband's sole privilege. Responsibility for the children must be shared by both parents in an equal manner.
Organization of the Women's Movement: Creation of Local Groups The first characteristic of women's movement should be its democratization, i.e. its ability to bring together all classes of women, urban, bedouin and rural. They could form local groups, similar to "people's councils", where women can discuss their problems and in itiate their own plans and solutions.
Such groups are actually developing in many parts of the Arab world. The success of the Women's Regional Conference in the Gulf states, March 1981, was due to the pressure of those women's groups and to their ability to direct meetings, initiate ideas and impose women's demands on the Conference. "Women's groups" were able to act independently and to recommend the gradual formation of a network of them , which model will be disseminated all over the Arab countries. Each group will benefit from a democratric structure and will have the power to make its own plans independently from outside pressure. Democratic organization and democratic politics, free from minority dictatorship should be the distinctive trail and the ultimate goal of the present women's movement.

A Bastard
What is a bastard? A law was established, Its explanation exists no more All men are my lather I was born without having one Of what use is this? I do not know All men could be my father Each tells me he has got one They relate their stories in lively tones Yet I see them lonely They all look like bastards ...

Hod. Adlb
Translated from French