women's rights

Rape is Rape: Lebanon Edition

Sexuality in ColorIn Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut) the joke is that it is equally likely to see a woman in a mini skirt as it is to see a woman in a hijab.

In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), European tourists feel at ease that the Lebanese still speak a post-colonial French, and let Beirut be called the Paris of the Middle East.

In Lebanon (or at least, in Beirut), tourists and Lebanese alike flock to the beaches and the nightclubs, openly drinking alcohol, smoking hookahs, and belly dancing to both popular western and Arabic music, creating a strange moment that many see as cultural influence, and many others see as cultural infiltration.

Still—despite the post-colonial familiarity and acceptability of Lebanese culture—Lebanese women remain in many ways decorative objects, openly ignored, slighted or discriminated against in legislation.

Let's Just Diss and Makeup

Next time somebody loftily tells you that differences between the sexes are grounded in biology, you have my permission to slap them with a judicial case. And I mean that literally: just print out the late-December ruling in the Harrah's makeup case, roll it into a hefty tube, and take a swing at their head.

Have a miscarriage... go to jail?

As you may or may not know, most miscarriages are about the human body being incredibly smart and humane: miscarriage, especially early miscarriages which often go unnoticed by many women (to the point that they're assumed to be normal periods, and the women were unaware they were even pregnant), is basically the body's way of naturally terminating births which will generally just not result in full-term, live or healthy births.