Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Hello, and welcome to woman off of the middle East podcast. This podcast relates to the realities of Arab women and their rich and diverse experiences. It's aims to present the multiplicity of women's voices and intuition is to break cultural stereotypes about women of the middle East, as well as educate and empower the younger generation of middle Eastern women who are stripped off their historical reference. And weren't necessarily raised to believe in their agency and power to create their own destiny. Um, I'm, <inaudible>, I'm a feminist scholar and educator. I'm also the author of Arab woman and Arab news, all stereotypes. And you meet you. I created this podcast to be an extension and an update of the book and its main topics. Hello and hope. You're all. Well, thanks to all who emailed and contacted me via social media, that your sincere wishes and prayers have certainly reached
Speaker 0 00:01:14 Me. I'm grateful.
Speaker 1 00:01:17 And I'm happy to say that I fully recovered from COVID 19, uh, corn or no Corona do stay in touch for episode five. I've chosen to speak to you about role models and their boat and the MENA region and the importance of role modeling as well. And within our societies in changing gender roles. Um, I've also recorded a very interesting interview with, um, uh, algebra zero TV producer and presenter, uh <inaudible> um, home. I'm sure you will enjoy listening to, uh, ended the episode where by playing a song that was produced by a to zero network as well for the celebration of international women's day.
Speaker 0 00:02:08 Let me start
Speaker 1 00:02:08 By saying women can more easily enter a culture of achievement when from their youngest memories, as girls such a culture is already visible for them to enter. There seems to be two kinds of such role models, which we shall call individualized and strategic role models. Individualized drawn models are women who may inspire girls without providing models that are easy for others to emulate their achievement may be leveraged through wealth, social position, inheritance or lucky circumstances that ordinary girls cannot reproduce. Strategic role models are women of achievement whose success is reproducible through instruction and training. Strategic role models make the roots of their success visible and reproducible for the next generation of women. There are the human developments report of 2005 on the rise of Arab woman, put some stock in the individualized drawn models as Al Hamid rights and the forward, the achievements of individual Arab women must be an a quote, must be the starting point for Arab development efforts on coat.
Speaker 1 00:03:20 While the report, uh, pays homage to the traditional role, women have played and family and social structures. It seeks to balance that role against newly emerging non-traditional roles of women achievers across the spectrum of professions and institutions of civil society and political and emancipatory movements. The report goes on to discuss the cultural barriers side to them in previous reports that must be lifted for Arab women to achieve their full potential. The impetus for lifting these barriers comes from the understanding of Arab woman's achievements potential and the huge cost of to society as well as to each woman personally, when they are not allowed to live it, to live up to it. Third report then goes on to profile the achievements of individual Arab woman and literature, arts cinema, the social and natural sciences, athletics and entrepreneur inertia.
Speaker 1 00:04:24 And five report recognizes that female empowerment programs are too individualized, have certain limitations, role models cut too close to the lives of specific individuals may turn in to tokens idols and celebrities, celebrities rather than true role models. The danger of role models that are too individualized. Instead they may encourage tokenism practices bringing cosmetic solutions to long standing and deeply rooted societal problems, strategic role models by contrast inspire study emulation admiration, but not celebrity worship or angulation. The 2005 report addresses the limits of role models for Arab women that have become too individualized. It asserts that reducing the gender empowerment deficits in their bold calls for more than a symbolic make over that lets a few Arab woman advance at the expense of the money, the report advocates, strategic thinking about the Arab woman's empowerment at the societal level, by what yet means, finding ways of for Arab woman to obtain a critical mass and positions of leadership and power.
Speaker 1 00:05:45 But what might such a strategy be? The report divides its answers to this question into two parts. The first part is to ensure the short term legal of Arab woman's rights, so that all barriers to developing their capacities and capabilities to their fullest potential arms are removed to this end, the report calls for the protection of women's rights and the home and beyond, and the guarantee of legal and institutional changes and compliance with the UN convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. It further calls for affirmative action practices and the hiring of Arab women. At least until the woman Richard critical mass that would make such policy and necessarily the second part, even more ambitious cold or calls for radical long-term shifts in societal thinking that would ensure that the Arab woman competitively educated and trained would be accorded to fair access to leadership positions systematically as an unexceptional cultural group, rather than a one token at a time cultural exception, learning for such a seismic shift calls for a new ideology about women and Arab societies and you social movements to help spread it. These new social movements would depend according to the report on networks for awful women and men working at the national and transnational level across the middle East and North Africa, individual female models can certainly fit into this strategic planning, but in order to do so, their personal example must be accompanied by strategic thinking
Speaker 0 00:07:32 In contrast
Speaker 1 00:07:33 To individualize female role models, which present Arab woman of achievements to younger Arab woman, without strategies for reproducing their success, strategic female role models to unify personal examples with the replication strategies required to build critical mass.
Speaker 1 00:07:57 This segment I'll be talking to <inaudible> is a presenter and producer of women's voices or, or because at Al Jazeera Arabic channel Rojas joined Al-Jazeera as a news presenter in 2014, covering a series of reports from the Central African Republic, Bosnia and Lebanon. She covers numerous events for a dizzier, including coverage of the United nations general assembly meetings. Nova has also conducted a number of high profile interviews for the channel, including the interview with Nobel prize winner, Nadia Murad during the Dora forum of 2018. I spoke to me about how it is like to be a woman. She delved into memories of childhood and early adulthood that has shaped her. She touched upon many topics that any woman anywhere in the world can relate to.
Speaker 2 00:08:56 She speaks about her personal experience with postpartum depression and sexual harassment. She also speaks about Western stereotypes of Arab woman as an Arab who lived in Paris for some time, but she talks about her program on the Zira network because Rita as translated into English women's voices, um, she speaks about the strength and support needed to produce and present such a program that is focused on women's issues. Doha is a strong and brave woman. I'm sure you'll enjoy listening to her as much as I enjoyed talking to her at all. Right. It's lovely to have you on a woman of the middle East podcast. I bet this will be a very special segment and a very special episode because it's not one that would focus on one, um, experience. Um, definitely we will be talking about your personal experience, but also about multiple experiences that you have been in contact with, um, on different levels, but to begin with, um, I'd like to, um, maybe frame it as, um, uh, we will be talking more about the intersections, uh, that, uh, that has been, um, uh, playing a huge role in your life. Uh, the personal and the professional. And I am interested in both the personal and the personal is the political rights. So, uh, can you tell us a bit about yourself, um, as a woman, as a mother, uh, um, um, as a professional as well.
Speaker 3 00:10:33 Um, but if we want to put it in the perspective of a woman, I have to start by, I am a doctor. Um, I actually recently discovered that my whole childhood and my experience with my mother is actually what shaped me to be, uh, this woman today. I am the daughter of a mother who had severe postpartum depression and as a child and at the year in the eighties, understood what it was. So, um, it was really severe and, uh, just people around us were telling us that we should just try, avoid, uh, pissing her off. We should try to protect her and that, no, we cannot go to a psychiatric ask for help because what will other people and or about her or about my father or that she's gone crazy. And, uh, so my entire life I was, I was the eldest. So I was in charge of my sister and my brother because my mom was, was someone who was not able to be there.
Speaker 3 00:11:46 Uh, at the same time, I don't hold any grudges against her, on the country. On the very short times, she was able to be, uh, mentally present for that. She thought that, um, how to be strong. And she taught us that it's very important, uh, to be true to ourselves and not to think about anyone else. And this is when I started thinking, who are these people who will be talking about this? And, um, I think this is when I really became someone independent and strong and free because I realized that these people, or even if they thought, what do they bring into my personal life? Like, why would they people bother these people bother conflict. My mom, crazy, or unfit mom, if we say that she's the, she's not being able to care for us, whereas they don't do anything to provide this care.
Speaker 3 00:12:40 I mean, why there's no positive intervention from society on the contrary, they like to be judgmental, but they don't offer help. And I think this is what shaped my infant or life. Uh, it's not to be, um, I mean, yeah, I, I always tell myself that I don't judge people because no one really understands what they're going through, but something I can do, I should do it instead of just being like, Oh, she shouldn't be treating her kids. Oh, she went crazy or, or on. And I think this is really what shaped me. I understood postpartum depression at the age of 30. So you have to imagine all these 30 years where you are really questioning what was wrong with our mom, what did we do wrong? Where, where did we do wrong as kids? Why wasn't she able to love us? And then you realize that she actually loved us.
Speaker 3 00:13:36 She just, she just needed a food. Just wanted to give her that pill, uh, because of their invalid norms and invalid lines and imaginary lines, I would say. And so as a daughter of a depressed mom, uh, I think this is what's really shaped everything in my life. I never really felt, uh, uh, that I'm rebellious. Now. Some people tell me that I'm rebellious, but I never really struggled. Um, I, uh, I, the things, uh, without thinking of it, this imaginary value. So in a way I didn't feel the struggle itself, uh, and uh, for other people, they see it as a, as a rebellion. Uh, I don't, because I just don't recognize these, the theater shifts.
Speaker 3 00:14:31 So that's it. So this is how I went into, I decided early. Yeah. I used to read a lot, so I always thank them. Thanks cultural center in the North of Lebanon, because we were at a generation bookstore also. So like everything was being under construction, nothing was as easy as today or accessible. So this heaven was really sacred for me and helps me a lot because I found so many answers and books and it taught me that I really need to study. And that the key to anything in my life to, to success is education, a job, financial security. And I understood, I think this whole experience made me understand that financial security is very important for women to have their own decision, to be free, to, uh, to do what they want, uh, or what they, what is true to themselves and what they deserve also, because we have this mentality that we don't deserve in a way to be, to be free, to be true, to be independent.
Speaker 3 00:15:40 So this is how it all started. And I had lots of periods of when I was lost. Of course I did the math the first year at university. Uh, and, uh, then I failed, uh, for, uh, for, it was actually the first time I get, um, sexually harassed during the exam by a controller. Uh, you know, I, since I was a very, uh, how would I say I wasn't very wide a teenager. Like I knew that this will end that and that there is no point to lose my future for teenagers. So Tyler was saying, just studying all going out, no friends, no, just focused on, I need to get out through education. So I need to make it through to university, um, best equipped as possible. So I was, I was never really in a situation where I, what I confronted the type of harassment that it affected me a lot.
Speaker 2 00:16:44 Were you aware at any? I have lots of friends. Okay. At our age, thirties and forties, who told me that the me too movement is what opened their eyes to the reality that they've been sexually harassed in their lives without even recognizing that it was sexual harassment. But you actually know that that was sexual harassment.
Speaker 3 00:17:11 Uh, no, th th there were, I would guess me to open my eyes to smaller details, smaller sexual harassment, but the one I suffered during the exam was like very direct and open so that I was really obscene with what he was, the controller, the supervisor. And he actually, uh, was very open about what he wanted me to do in class. So, so that was very clear, but yes, I guess the me too opened my eyes to many little things that, uh, I never really paid attention to or thought that, uh, yeah, maybe it's normal. And I think what I would love to tell teenagers day is that don't, don't intimate. Don't be intimidated. Don't let the predator, uh, get you to think that no, maybe you're getting him wrong when you feel there's something you feel about harassment. There are people who tell you, Oh, you look very beautiful today.
Speaker 3 00:18:13 And there's the same. Another person will tell you look very beautiful and you will feel better, or you will feel uncomfortable. And this is harassment for me. This is the small line, because there are people who have this, uh, uh, imposing, um, posture, or can you feel the difference? So just stick to your feeling and don't be like, Oh, maybe I'm getting him wrong. Or, you know, th the, the usual technique of harassers, or why did you go this way? Or why did you feel this way? No, I, I felt good and it's strong. I have the right to say it's wrong. So, yeah. So I failed my math because of the harasser I found my year. Uh, and then I went to complain when I actually, I, it was a very minor difference, uh, to pass the second year. So I went to the Dean to complain, and then he told me, you know, I actually, since the front, he wasn't my teacher off algebra as well.
Speaker 3 00:19:09 So he told me the first time you stood up in class to ask me a question, I was like, what is this girl doing here? She shouldn't be in, uh, uh, journalism, um, uh, faculty. I was like, you know, when you're in scientific fields, they don't even tell you that such fields exists. Uh, so he told me go apply. It's, uh, uh, you have to have an entry exam if you don't fast, come back and I'll see what I can do to pass you to second year. Um, but ABB see you there. And this is how it started. I went to, uh, the test I passed and I felt like, Oh, this looks more like me. You, you have to understand a little bit of everything. Uh, politics, economy, society, math, uh, everything. So I felt like this is something that looks more like me, and this is how it started. Um, and now I would say I I'm happy about that because, um, because I really don't like to be bored. That's my main problem in life. You know, I think when you read a lot, when you're young, you cannot just stick to a very limited, uh, uh, task. Uh, you need to have your mind working the whole time. So that's what I like about journalism.
Speaker 2 00:20:28 That's amazing. What did join Elysium, um, uh, provide you with as a woman? Um, but the first, what, 10 minutes of this conversation, you've touched on very important issues, right? Uh, the stigma just to geared towards women, to make them feel that they're less of humans in our societies. Um, whether it's because of mental issues, physical issues, you also speak about disabilities and other social issues. There's a stigma that is attached to divorce. So the, the children of a single mother suffered that stigma, too. Stigma attached to a woman who is beaten by her husband. So domestic violence turns against a woman herself, the woman themselves, because there must be something wrong with them. They must, it must have done the copy wrong. So, unfortunately, this is the story of so many women in the Arab world. You know what? This is what made this strong woman basically made us aware that there are rights, that we are deprived off as women taking the path that we've taken. You took the journalism path. What did they provide you with? Well, hers
Speaker 3 00:21:44 Shame towards myself, because I remember when I was 16. Um, I stood up at, at, at school and I told my teacher that I actually don't want, uh, women's rights because I don't want to be equal. I still want the man to take the garbage out and be opinionated. And, you know, very sure about this. And, uh, it was something that my father used to, uh, used to tell us, like, what, who needs, uh, equality? And I remember she laughed and she told me, you know, you're 16 now, but you will work and you will be a mom and you will have a family, and then you will change your mom. So I'm not going to be offended by what's, you're saying now. And so I always, now, when I hear women struggle, I always remember that arrogant teenager. I was, and I feel ashamed of how I did it.
Speaker 3 00:22:40 See all this, even though I was reading so many books like chair, now I read them even differently. Journalism opened my eyes, that women in the Arab world are not weak women, like, uh, some, some westernized, uh, point of view with see them. They are women who are struggling a lot who are the real fighters, and they are real survivors. And throughout the years, they brought so many changes without being too confrontational. And they're very smart about it, but it's a struggle. And I think that, uh, what journalism brought to me is that I, so to which extent, uh, it's not, um, it's not a battle between women and men. It's a battle between people who are interested in human rights and people who just want the patriarchal system where you don't have rights. You don't have an opinion and you're just follow. So it's between people who want to lead and people who want to follow, I would say, um, yeah, that's what journalism,
Speaker 2 00:23:50 It's a power struggle after all the patriarchy is not just against women rights, but against men's rights. Um, so tell me more about your, um, your experience that, um, and, and that has led you to your recent, um, program, which I'm very interested in
Speaker 3 00:24:11 My program now is, um, called, uh, because in English we translate the two women voices, but the name and Arabic is very important for me to explain it's that as a, the donation that shows that, uh, you is going directly to a female, because I realized that most of the shows about women, uh, they talk about her, uh, as a sheep, but not, not as a, you, we don't listen actually to her voice. And because, uh, it has also another meaning. It means breaking this T uh, because in my ID, the way I see women, we just put them in a close circle like that. A lot of time, Arabic, uh, we, we just put her in this circle, you have to use to be beautiful and smiley and well dressed and, uh, uh, makeup on and just smiling the whole time. And these are the topics that are about women, fashion, how to raise a child, how to decorate your house and what to cook today.
Speaker 3 00:25:15 And so for me, it's not that I love cooking and I love getting dressed well, and I love reading. My child does not deny this fact. It's just that, no, this is not what a woman is all about. A woman is actually living everything. A man is living, she's living politics, she's living a, uh, economic situation, you know, in the most dire economic situations, it's usually women who, uh, think the responsibility of finding alternatives to feed their family. So in, in the war, she's the one who's living all the consequences of the war. She's, uh, uh, she's losing her provider. She has to provide for herself, for her family. She has to move from one country to another sometimes. So she, she has so many responsibilities and, uh, and just putting her in that close circle. And, uh, just telling you, this is all you need to think about, uh, is not even true to what she feels, what she lives.
Speaker 3 00:26:17 She, she loves a very, uh, hard situation. Most of the time, eh, even women who are, who are coming from a more, um, wealthy environment, they have their own struggles, they have their own battles. Uh, and, um, I think that we even in the West, we have this kind of, uh, idea because I lived in France for a year. So I re I still remember how they were looking at women in the Arab world. They were looking at us as women who are weak, who are just, uh, uh, swimming as submissive, uh, to the patriarchal system. Whereas we're really strong, uh, an Arab it's very strong inside their house. Most of the time, she's the one eating the house. Uh, and that's what she's really with, um, within the abuser or I, the way I was thrown me is that most women are the ones who are leading, uh, the family, uh, in one way or another, maybe not very confrontational, but they are.
Speaker 3 00:27:24 Uh, so that's why I wanted to break the stereotype image, uh, about two men, uh, the, and they wanted to show them so many things. They live it's, it's in a way to empower women, but I think we have this new trend of empowering women, a little bit artificial and shallow and most TVs and, uh, uh, media mainstream, mainstream media, uh, and they want to go more deep, empowering women means you need to empower her politically, uh, society, uh, uh, socially, economically, uh, even health wise, psychologically, there are so many aspects and of course, education, of course. So, uh, so that's why I chose to listen to the stories of these women, not have a specialist tell us, uh, I think this is what's new about it is that you hear it from David. Uh, I wouldn't say victims because most of the women are I, um, uh, I host, uh, even if they were victims, at some point they are strong women who, uh, managed to get out of their situation and, uh, and move to somewhere better. So, uh, so the personal story of the survivors, I would say,
Speaker 2 00:28:43 And, um, what's special about your program at the program is special on so many different levels to send the truth. Um, there is, of course, um, uh, the programming that, as you said, speaks to, um, the woman as consumers, um, uh, they talk about, as you said, makeup, uh, other things that concern women definitely, but there's more women than that. And there are the, the serious, let's say programs that has been, um, addressing women's political empowerment, social empowerment, economic empowerment, but those programs didn't start. I would say many of them didn't survive on the long run. So they started injecting what the paid is to women as consumers as well within those programs. So you see, I'm not saying it's wrong and I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that maybe people looked at their organs and they saw that, you know, she was programs do not appeal to Yemen. Is that correct? Do you think that's correct. How do you think your program was received as one of those very serious programs?
Speaker 3 00:29:51 Um, I would say this is where we played on cinematic and the way they presented with we played rainy year, visually on, uh, um, emphasizing more, the person that's scoring. And, uh, we, we, uh, that's why we include cinema informatics scene. So it's more like a docu-drama, uh, so far the, the, uh, women who watched the show, they, they like it and they managed to finish the episode. I think this is coming because, uh, I use the person, the story, like, um, uh, I, I bring normal women that say in brackets normal, couldn't compare it to specialized or activist. And, um, uh, I tackle things more on the personal level, even when they're, um, activists, uh, I go on, how did that make you feel, uh, what pushed you on the personal level? Uh, psychologically to go all the way through this, of course you run out a little bit sometimes of, uh, of topics maybe.
Speaker 3 00:31:01 Um, but I think it's also going into that is really, uh, it takes a lot of time. Uh, I have to admit I'm not blaming other shows because I can see how it's sometimes me, me and the producer. We just say, if we were just doing this type of show, like in our it's live, it's way easier than what we do. Uh, one episode from us States 3d at least three weeks to finish, uh, and post production and the preparation and everything. Um, we invest a lot in it, so it's not really easy for, uh, for people on TV who want to go live every week. Uh, it takes really a lot of effort and a lot of passion. You need to find the good team who is as passionate as you about it to, to actually big for the cases. Uh, if I wasn't with the, this feminist producer who is, uh, I'm lucky to have a man who was feminist and that's rare, uh, even with, uh, some women, I wouldn't have had the luck, uh, I had worked with him.
Speaker 3 00:32:08 So it's really a lot of work, a lot of team effort, um, to be able to give that depth and to be able to get big and find the rights cases, um, to talk about it in a, not very boring way, because TV is not, um, it's not something, uh, an academic, uh, it's not, you have to talk to everyone. There's the academic. And there's also my grandma who, who didn't finish school beyond the third grade. So, uh, so you're, you have everyone. And I always keep that in my mind that my grandma needs to understand as much as an intellectual and intellectual will not get bored by listening to normal people. Uh, well, when you were bringing genuine stories, whereas, uh, someone was not the educated wouldn't get bored if he's just listening to, uh, for example, uh, I would say like if we use the term intersectional and the gender issues, gender equality, these are terms they don't even understand.
Speaker 3 00:33:15 So I'm simplifying things to them, but at the same time, I'm not closing the, that, uh, it takes a lot of work. To be honest, I read a lot of, uh, academic research. I read a lot of articles. I see what other people did. I tried to ask people when I want to present this topic, how do they see it? So, so I can simplify it because also when you read a lot, you get stuck in a, in a different level of knowledge. So you need to always remind, remind yourself how to talk to people who didn't treat as much as you. Um, so yeah, I guess this is what makes me survive so far and not go for the commercial type. And this is what lights and other shows, uh, with all due respect. It's, it's, it's just that it's really a lot of work. And I understand when they, um, they have the urgency of the broadcast time that they need to give up on some things. And, and sometimes it's just that they don't have the passion, they're just selling the airline. So
Speaker 2 00:34:20 Exactly. It's lovely. So you touched on your audience and it's lovely that you're saying that your program is basically not one of the, those elitist programs. So it's not geared towards the intellectuals, the intelligentsia and the Arab world on the country. Um, you're trying to, um, not Welter it down, but, um, uh, you know, break it down for them in terms and language, that would be understandable for the bigger audience. Um, it says an Arabic, which is also a very important, so as you said, it would greet your grandmother, but also, you know, students, um, and, and women, um, everywhere. Uh, and you touched on something that I love as well, is the he for she is, well, yes, there are many men, many men in the Arab world who support women who are feminists, hardcore feminists, actually more than you, some of them definitely. And then they're taking their clothes, our clothes as their clothes, and they're running with it. And for them really, I send them my love and regards because we do need them in spoke about how it takes lots of strength. And I bet it takes mental and physical, psychological strength, because I see that you're mostly neutral as if you're trying to be strong and show your strengths in front of not victims, but read stories, the qualities of, of women within those societies. And some of those realities are harsh realities. How do you deal with,
Speaker 3 00:35:57 Um, I have to admit that we, we now Europe, uh, um, good for us. Um, like they gave us a fee.
Speaker 2 00:36:11 Well, I think we all need,
Speaker 3 00:36:13 Yeah, because I had one day, even the editor, who's just cutting the images. Uh, he came, he was, uh, he came out crying and he said, I just can't take it anymore. These are a few stories and real pain. It's not. Um, there, there, there are some very strong stories. I'm someone who was, uh, because of my experience with my mom, I would say I'm someone who is psychologically very aware of how things impact me. Uh, and I think that, um, throughout my years in the news, it taught me that you do have PTSD, even if you're not on the ground and I've been on the ground as well. But you also, when you are listening to all these stories, you, you accumulate, um, a lot of, uh, anger, a lot of, uh, deception, a lot of, uh, uh, thing as well. You, you sympathize.
Speaker 3 00:37:07 And now I just take it as a, my strong point that I sympathized with the point of seeing things that other journalists might not see. Uh, I just do lots of sports after, and I tried to eat, uh, to take all my <inaudible>. Like, I really managed my serotonin level and, uh, the most, the healthier weight in order to be able to remain chemically strong. Uh, and, uh, if I cry, I cry a lot on sometimes it's just, the story is so dramatic that I cry with the guests, but I just had it then the other thing. So I allow myself to cry. I allow myself to sympathize and, um, and yes, that this whole experience, this, uh, the, these so many personal stories, uh, you just, you just see more and more how injustice the whole society is towards. Um, I will not just say the woman about, towards anyone who is weaker.
Speaker 3 00:38:12 They consider weaker, uh, in this, in the sense and the standards of society. Because for me, they're not weak people. Like I remember the mother, uh, of a child who has, um, a very, a rare syndrome, uh, part of the autism syndromes, but even more severe. And she was, uh, she, she now immigrated to Turkey where, and she said that the thing that struck her the most is how people were nice to her child in the restaurant. They were like coming because in their mentality and their culture, uh, anyone who is mentally retarded as someone who brings a lot of goods. So they come and like, they take a better cat, uh, from him. Yeah. Blessing blessings from them. Whereas in the Arab world, wherever, whenever she was in the restaurant with him, people were like looking at her, like just get this child to shut up. Or they were not English, sympathizing, and that's, we just need to be nicer. And the way we, we are bullies and we, um, and we easily get carried away behind bullies, uh, in the society. And, uh, and we want to impose standards that are not really as a human as, um, as we want to be.
Speaker 2 00:39:31 Talk about, um, your recent trip to, uh, to bagels. So with, um, awful, um, catastrophic, um, uh, event and Beirut that took place in, um, on August 4th, I believe, uh, with the explosion, that's what the port of woods, um, you, you actually visited, um, right after that, and you spoke to different women. Were, are you able to capture, um, the miseries that, um, have been inflected on them? Um, um, but still capture the diversity, uh, Lebanese women are so different in terms of, uh, religion sectors, um, class, um, uh, race as well. Um, were you able to capture that? Yes.
Speaker 3 00:40:30 Yes. Um, no. At the same time, though, in the sense of everyone was equal
Speaker 2 00:40:36 In front of the Missouri, it's
Speaker 3 00:40:38 Really amazing to see, not the amazing, amazing is the wrong word, but really striking to see, uh, how people who are living in downtown, which is a very expensive area. Uh, had their houses destroyed the same way as someone who's living in an old drunken house in Jamaica or Brent immunity that these people, if they leave their house, the landlord will take it back. We'll take it back and rent it to special, low, uh, for, uh, for people who rented like before the, uh, 2000, they, uh, they still pay cheap. So many of these women, we haven't resolved and who was staying in her house, whereas she doesn't have a toilet anymore. There's a tree out inside her throat. She has to go downstairs to a neighbor to go to the toilet every day because, uh, her rent is $300 per year. If she leaves the house, the landlord is going from, uh, and feed back to the house.
Speaker 3 00:41:42 And, uh, like we offered her a one year, uh, upfront, somewhere around <inaudible> and she was like, okay. And then after that one year I'm, I'm in retirement, I'm not going to be able to find a job and I'm not going to be like putting all my hopes on just being helped the whole time until I die. So my best choice is just to stay where I am and, uh, hold on to this, um, this house. And you have so many people like that, and you have people like <inaudible> building, uh, also really devastated. And, uh, so everyone was equal in a sense, but at the same time everyone was, um, how did his unique story? There's the lady who has to hold on to a destroyed house because she will not afford, uh, to rent elsewhere. There is the lady who lost everything and she has to start back from zero.
Speaker 3 00:42:39 Uh, and they were already in a poor area. You have the rich people who also are not going to easily afford reconstruction because of the catastrophe of the dollar. You have the woman who lost their children, um, the women who lost their mothers. Uh it's yeah. They're, they're equal in Missouri and at the same time. So, so the front, and you have, you have people who just want to be strong because we're raised in Lebanon. So where we know throw muscle so well that we know that we have to move on. Uh, we have to clean up. We have, we just get into this automated mode of, okay, what's next? How do we go back to normal? Um, but I think people are more and more aware of, I think this was really major for so many of them. Like they know they have to move on, but at the same time, they see that they're fed up with accumulating all these traumas throughout the years.
Speaker 3 00:43:40 And, uh, they're really tired. People are really tired. And, uh, this one was different because it came from within the country. It's not people who were fighting each other. It's not the Israel who bombed them. It's not the terrorist attack. It just took all the security. That was also a franchise security, but it took it away from them. Like before you used to know that, uh, if there is a bomb being, you just run in the other direction, don't go back there because there might be another. Now they feel like they don't know where to run to. It was living next to them, uh, next door. And yeah,
Speaker 2 00:44:19 You're a brave woman. You're a very strong and brave woman. And you went back to your home country, she would cover the Missouri's of others that definitely empathize with and identify with. Um, and this takes me back to the personal and the political, um, uh, your personal challenges as a woman, um, uh, growing up, um, uh, within that, um, you know, situation that you grew up in, um, um, with being a very young teenager, without a mother who would help you understand, uh, the physical changes that happen to you as a girl, I'm assuming please correct me if I'm also to protect yourself as a girl, I guess, um, this is where, um, our role as women, um, kicks in, uh, where, uh, not going to be submissive to, uh, what others went through on the Outland, which is very brave, extremely brave of you.
Speaker 2 00:45:23 It's not easy to talk about it, but the moment you talk about it, you let it go, right? You did that, and you let it go by doing that. Um, the millions and millions of girls around Arabs listens numb Muslims, herbs from the middle East, from the whole world to see that we share that experience. This happens to all of us, all of us, we all can identify with what you sent. Um, and this is really brave of you, but also I love the fact that you have, um, the, the, the program was your idea. You fought for it. Um, and, um, it's on a air right now, and I hope it's pitching you to do what the it is doing. It is. You're giving a platform for a woman, a woman, as you said, um, to, um, to platform for their voices to know what they're going through. It's very different to people sometimes ask me about, um, a certain population of women, um, whether here in my own country. And I tell them, I don't know, unfortunately, I don't know, I can't speak on the behalf of, you know, a black woman, for example, I can't speak on the behalf of a poor woman. I cannot. Okay. But what I can do is find a way for them to speak on their own behalf. And this is exactly what you did, and this is, um, I'm, um, I'm very proud of them.
Speaker 3 00:47:01 Thank you.
Speaker 2 00:47:04 As you would like to tell us, tell people who are listening to this podcast, men and women.
Speaker 3 00:47:11 Well, I have an issue I would like to address because I'm getting criticized a lot on the show that it's too dark or negative. And, um, those are the new trend in the world about being positive and being negative. And I just remember, uh, we put the song for women, for a woman, and, um, where you asked them singer to actually write the words. And the words were very much inspired by the secret. You know, you, you can take your own destiny in hands and you can achieve things. And, uh, you can do things by yourself if you just think hard about it and you can both them. And, uh, I told the singer that yeah, her and the society that provides for her that supports her. Yes, she can do that, but I cannot go and tell this, uh, that's not positive. That's insulting.
Speaker 3 00:48:13 If I want to tell it to a woman, uh, who ha who was forced to leave her house and got raped four times in the refugee camp. And then she has to get up and find a job to feed her children and just move on. But just two minutes after she got raped, I cannot tell her that you must have thought about that and got this way. This is not being positive. This is being insulting. So we have to be really aware that being positive is actually see, I got great. I'm going to spend up for myself and I'm going to move on. And this is how I will move on and I will deal with it. And then I can be even more positive if I have the power. And I'm, if I don't have the power and I don't have the strength, I'm not forced to, to do this.
Speaker 3 00:49:02 It's more than enough to stand up for myself. But if the strength do my best, that this will not happen again to other women, this for me is being positive. And following the women's struggle, uh, is not easy. Negative. It's not a negative thing, but this is actually very positive because we had so many things happening again. And again, again like me too, because people didn't talk about it. And I think that our generation is struggling with its own self or with people who just want, Oh, Oh, we're so tired of listening to the misery of others. But if we don't do that, everyone just saw half of the glass full. Then we'll end up running out of water one day. So being positive is also seeing half of the class empty and say, what do we need to do to avoid running out of Walker?
Speaker 3 00:49:59 So, um, I think that with you and the idea of positive and negative, that we don't know how to really approach it. And I think that I used to think of myself as someone depressive or depressed. And then I had this study that actually people who are more useful to the society, not the optimistic one to see half of the grad school, it's people who see half empty and know that we need to do things to stop that. So I now consider myself someone who's very positive and happy person, even if I sympathize or I feel the pain, or if I'm sad sometimes because I see what other people feel. That's not bad to feel what others do. It's something it's a duty for every woman. Who's living a better life to feel what other women are, uh, are living. So, and I think that this is what needs to be positive. Thank you so much for being on a woman of the middle East. Um, and, uh, we're very proud of you. Thank you. Thank you very much for hosting
Speaker 4 00:51:00 <inaudible>.
Speaker 1 00:51:15 I end this episode with, um, the song, the throw out has mentioned that was, um, produced for, um, her program, um, and celebration offense or national women's day. Uh, and I give credit to Al-Jazeera networks, especially in Xera Arabic until the next episode, uh, stay safe and stay
Speaker 4 00:51:47 <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible> <inaudible>.
