Interesting Report about the Arab women.
They fought and they are still fighting for there rights without the negligeance of there duties !
Complete Rights should be given to the Lebanese and Arab women from driving ( in KSA ) , voting , give nationality to there children ...
All humans are equal.

Kudos to all the women who strive daily for equality, in the Middle East, and around the world.

The Arab world in general is a male dominant society.

despite still existing old outdated male laws, conditions of women in Lebanon is far better compared to other Arab countries.

Women should empower and prove themselves then claim their rights; because it's ridiculous to believe that they will get them in any other way.

it also starts at home. When a male baby is born.. he is practically raised and fed with a silver spoon in his mouth, treated as if he s - - - s marble (excuse my French), producing a bumptious, egocentric male dominant society.

I say Girl Power to all the women in the Arab world...rise and shine you can do it!

It's a double-faced reality that Arab women are confronting with and it's splitting them off, inevitably... The same thing was happening in the USA in the '50-'60 and look what changes it has brought! I think that Arab women have a long way to go but, for God's sake!, keep going! The changes will occur, it's for sure, probably not the way they occured in the USA, but depending on the specific cultural and political experience of the Arab world, but they will!

Don't give up!

Aliona, Romania

It is unfortunate that Arab women have been denied equal rights. As soon as the Arab countries become democracies instead of dictatorships, I am sure that equal rights for women will follow.

Arab women should look for their inspiration in Israel. It elected its first female prime minister almost 40 years ago. Currently, women control the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Israeli government which occurs in no other country in the world!

The next prime minister will be Tzipi Livni (who is currently the foreign minister). The Speaker of Parliament (Knesset) is Dalia Itzik. The Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court is Dorit Beinisch. Furthermore, power is not limited to these three women. Tzipi Livni made sure to appoint a woman, Gabriela Shalev, as Israel's ambassador to the UN. And Dorit Beinisch has ensured that approximately half of the current Israeli Supreme Court is made up of women justices.

Every citizen in every country should be guaranteed equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal responsibilities.

In the Arab world, women have too few rights. In Israel, sometimes women have more rights and sometimes less. For example, Israel ranks low on the list of female members of parliament (compared to other democracies Israel is ranked around 86th place), however there is also a disproportionate number of unelected women serving in various governmental roles. Women also receive special preference and make up the majority of the legal profession in Israel as well as students at the universities. In addition, while men have to serve 3 years in the Israel Defense Forces, women only have to serve less than 2 years. But they are still doing more than their Arab and ultra-Orthodox fellow citizens who refuse to serve the country at all. It is time that all citizens are treated equally and that also means fulfilling the same obligations and responsibilities. Discrimination exists only when citizens who are equal on paper and not treated equally in reality. If everyone had the same rights, opportunities, and responsibilities then discrimination against any member of society would virtually cease to exist.

it is not the fault of society that Arab women have less right than men.it is the Arab woman her self that is at fault.under Islam she has all the right as a human some time more right than men,for instance she can keep her money if she wishes but her husband is not allowed to do so he is responsible for her welfare and is responsible to spend on the house hold.very few Arab women fight for their rights and the few that fight for their rights always wins.the More Arab women are educated the more they know how to defend their rights .

I am surprised that this Blog did not talk about that brave Egyptian woman who has the courage to report a sexual harassment after confronting the assailant single handedly, this man was sentenced to three years in Jail. it took the court few days to find him Guilty.this brave Lady knows her right and she fought for it,and that is the way that Arab women should do I am sure the Majority of Arab men will stand by them to have their full equality with men because that is their god giving right according to the Holly Quran.

Although, I agree with you that religion has given women equal rights, I don't agree that the Middle Eastern Men are for that equality. I also think that Gender Discrimination is not based on religion but on culture. Therefore, the whole society needs to be on board to bring about swift change. The burden lies on the mothers and fathers today to teach their children about gender equality, not just by saying; by living it.

And as far as we know, culture includes religion... Religion includes culture and so on and so forth, and who's to answer what gender discrimination is about?

...never mind.

Aliona

@4:13; "The Arab world in general is a male dominant society."

While your statement may be true, Israel could be considered by some as a female dominant society. For example, the city of Ra'anana will now put women at well over 50% of the city council. The same also goes for the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of Israeli government which are all headed by far-left females (Tzipi Livni, Dalia Itzik, and Dorit Beinisch respectively).

There is no problem in having women equally representated, as they are equal citizens and should be treated as such. However, it is unacceptable that all the women in Israeli society who have positions of power in government come only from the far left of the political spectrum and are not accountable to the people. There are plenty of well-qualified Israeli women from the center and the right of the political spectrum who have no chance at coming to power based on the elitism of the current political system. In fact, all polls point to the fact that the centrist and rightist parties are favored to win a landslide victory in the upcoming elections. But who knows if the voters will even get to go to the polls, considering the many tricks that the Olmert-Livni-Barak government have up their sleeves to prevent democratic elections from taking place.

There are also far more female lawyers and judges than males. This is not because they necessarily have outperformed their male counterparts on judicial exams, but because they are automatically awarded more slots at top universities, law firms, and in the government due to their gender. Where is the outrage at this blatant discrimination and sexism being practiced by Israel's elite?!

A further problem is the fact that these lawyers and judges are not accountable to the Israeli voters. Former Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak made sure to appoint his favorite extreme leftist judge Dorit Beinisch as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court when he retired. Barak and Beinisch believe in judicial activism and have overruled legislation that was democratically passed in the Israeli parliament (Knesset). Even worse, they have made laws that were never passed by the legislature nor put to a referendum by the people. In the UK the Supreme Court is banned from overruling legislation passed by parliament, but in Israel nobody stops these activist judges from passing judgment, not based on their interpretation of the law, but based on their extremely liberal political ideology. Since Israel still remains one of the only countries in the world without a written constitution, the activist judges have chosen to amend the Basic Laws (passed by the "Knesset"/parliament in 1992) and basically any complaint that comes before them, no matter how absurd, can be turned into a law based on their decisions even if there is no legal precedent and if it runs contrary to legislation passed by the Knesset.

While Israel is a democracy, in the last decade or so, the judicial branch has illegally usurped authority from the executve and legislative branches of government. The committee that appoints all new Supreme Court justices ensures that any candidate that opposes left-wing judicial activism will not be appointed to the court. Such is the case with leftist candidate Dr. Ruth Gavison. Although her ideology falls lock step with that of the other unelected judges, she is not interested in legislating from the bench and thus her nomination to the Israeli Supreme Court has been opposed by none other than Beinisch and her cronies because Gavison refused to use the position as a way to enact far-left legislation that would otherwise be rejected by the majority of mainstream Israeli society. While her ideological views are not in line with the majority of Israelis, nevertheless Gavison should be commended for her judicial integrity.

Unlike in the U.S. where all nine Supreme Court justices rule on a case, in Israel it is mostly confined to three judge panels. The vast majority of the time these panels are made up of at least 2 female Supreme Court justices, who at no surprise are the most far-left members of the court. Where is the international outcry at this blatant sexist discrimination?! There are 13 members of the Israeli Supreme Court yet almost all cases are decided by these three judge panels. These activist judges effectively control Israeli society, although they are unelected and unaccountable to the people. What democratic country would tolerate such nonsense?!

Furthermore, Israel has had the unfortunate luck of being cursed by the "Barak" and "Ehud" syndrome. After all, some of those who have negatively impacted society the most are named Aharon Barak, Ehud Olmert, and of course Ehud Barak.