Breaking The Political Glass Ceiling: The Case of Women in Lebanon
The Lebanese parliament in 2011. Photo via Flickr.
Lebanon was one of the first countries in the Arab world to accord women equal rights to participate in politics in 1953. The Lebanese Constitution, promulgated in 1926, articulates the principle of equality among genders and citizens. Despite this progressive step, women were largely excluded from politics until the 1992 parliamentary elections. In July of 2006, a government cabinet vowed to effectuate the commitments Lebanon made in connection with the 1995 Beijing conference; in 2008, the government affirmed this commitment by announcing that Lebanon would take all necessary measures to integrate women into financial, economic, social, and political arenas. Prime Minister Saad Hariri created a “Minister of State for Women’s Affairs” in 2019, a welcomed development until the appointment of a 62-year old man to the position drew backlash. While gender issues have certainly gained traction, the numbers display a different picture.
In comparison to other Arab countries, Lebanon is considered to be progressive and does not place legal restrictions on women entering any job market. Yet, according to the Global Gender Gap Index 2020 Rankings, Lebanon ranks 145 out of 153. When considering political empowerment specifically, this number drops to 149, with Oman and Yemen being the only Middle Eastern countries with a worse ranking. Surprisingly, countries such as Saudi Arabia, with track records of oppressive policies, rank better than Lebanon in political empowerment (136/152). This begs the question of why women in Lebanon are not equally represented in the political sphere.
Women are highly politically active in Lebanon; in the 2018 parliamentary election, women comprised 51% of voters, outnumbering male voters in 14 of the 15 electoral districts. Yet, women constitute less than 5% of the seats in parliament, despite the 2018 elections boasting a record high number of registered female candidates (113). When considering the appointment of four women as ministers, this number totals to a collective 10%. In fact, since Lebanese women gained suffrage, only 17 women have served in Lebanon’s parliament.
Paradoxically, women have higher enrollment rates than men but constitute only 23% of the labor force. Countries such as Jordan, Tunisia, and Syria, with lower female enrollment rates in tertiary education, enjoy higher levels of female parliamentary representation. Thus, while structural barriers have certainly impeded female participation in politics, the barriers women face are an amalgam of interrelated causes. Lack of female participation in politics in Lebanon is the result of an interplay between various structural and societal factors: gender norms and inequality, confessionalism and clientelism, the electoral system, political familism, and media coverage and financial constraints.
Gender Norms and Inequality
Cultural norms and beliefs pertaining to the traditional household versus public responsibilities dictate the perception of a woman’s role. Family structure in Lebanon is highly patriarchal: a father’s role is defined as the breadwinner of the family. Fathers are the property owners and decision makers, whereas women are limited to being mothers and caretakers. For women who decide to enter the workforce, they face the double burden of managing household responsibilities in addition to workplace demands. According to a 2017 study on attitudes toward gender equality in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, and Palestine, 60% of men and 45% of women believed that taking care of the family is a woman’s most important role.
As a result of traditional gender norms, disparities exist across the following six sectors: governance, workforce development, livelihoods and access to finance, and education. Women’s labor-force participation rate is 23% compared to 71% for men, well below the global rate of 46.9%. Although women own more than 30% of small businesses in the developing world, only 3% of bank loans are given to women in Lebanon. The majority of Lebanese women work in jobs on the lower levels of the economic pyramid such as clerical positions, retail sales, service jobs, or factory work.
Within the legal system, women remain uniquely disadvantaged by15 distinct, religion-based personal status laws. Lebanon does not have a code of civil procedure that manages matters of personal status. As part of Lebanon’s confessional system, personal status and civil affairs are formally relegated to the religious authorities, according to Article 9 of the Lebanese Constitution. Women face discrimination in matters of child custody, divorce, marriage, and inheritance across all confessions. For Muslims, the courts are separated into Sunni and Shiite; for the various Christian denominations, the ecclesiastical courts preside over any issues of personal status. Marital rape, child marriage, and domestic violence are very much legal depending on which court hears the issue. Thus, women even face inequality amongst each other, depending on their religion.
By delegating private matters to the jurisdiction of various religious courts, the Constitution fails to establish true equality and creates a buffer between the state and the citizen. While religious authorities commonly tout judicial pluralism as a beacon of Lebanon’s religious diversity, the laws disproportionately discriminate against women. Women’s subordination in this sense naturally extends to the political realm where they are unable to overcome their second-class citizenship both formally and informally. Nationality laws further discriminate against women: according to the Lebanese National Law, Decree No.15, only men can pass down their citizenship to their children and spouses when marrying a foreigner.
Due to gender norms, some women themselves have come to believe that men are better suited for politics. A national survey conducted by The Status of Women in the Middle East and North Africa (SWMENA) in 2009 found that 30% of women with university education, and an average of 40% of women with secondary education, believed that men are better political leaders than women; despite women’s educational achievements, cultural norms deem marriage as the next best accomplishment after receiving a degree, rather than entering the workforce. The fact that 51% of women voted in the 2018 elections, but had a dismal success rate of less than 5%, demonstrates that the issue is not political unawareness or apathy, but rather, ingrained cultural norms.
Confessionalism and Clientelism
Institutionally, the foundation of sectarianism is antithetical to women’s rights and interests. Lebanon is an ethnically and religiously heterogeneous country. The country’s demographic composition has long been a cause of hostility between the three major communities: Maronites, Shiites, and Sunnis. Other cross-cutting cleavages have produced class disparities due to uneven income and gender disequilibria.
Drawing an end to the Lebanese Civil War, the 1989 Ta’if Agreement established a revised confessional structure which increased the number of seats in parliament to 128 and re-equilibrated the relationship between Christians and Muslims by implementing a 50-50 ratio for the allocation of parliamentary seats (64 seats each). It mandated that the president, prime minister, and speaker of the parliament must be the following, respectively: Maronite Christian, Sunni Muslim, and Shia Muslim. This consociational power-sharing system deliberately focuses heavily on allocating quotas based on sect but fails to establish quotas for women.
If women were to gain equal rights in Lebanon, such as being able to pass down their citizenship, this would shift the demographic distribution the system is founded upon and would threaten its precarious balance. Thus, excluding women from political power is perhaps a conservative approach to maintaining the status quo; integrating women that may call for change from high decision-making positions poses a threat to this balance that political elites benefit from.
Beyond the confessional identity, Lebanon’s politics are driven by a system of patronage and clientelism: this “powerful web of clientelist relations secures votes by buying the loyalty of citizens with goods and services long before, and long after, elections take place.” Men manage this web from the ground up by appointing leaders at local and municipal levels in order to accord and negotiate services and favors to citizens in exchange for loyalty. Once in office, public services are distributed as favors, and in return, leaders expect loyalty. Clientelism is a barrier for women because it favors men who have the necessary financial resources and connections to engage with their constituents.
The Electoral System
Lebanon, via Decree no. 44, implemented a new electoral law in June of 2017. For the first time in the country’s history, a proportional representation (PR) system was implemented, and a preferential vote for candidates on open lists, pre-printed ballots, and overseas voting was established. The number of parliamentary seats were kept at 128, and the number of districts reduced from 26 to 15.
According to the Decree, voters are automatically registered in their family’s documented historic residence. Once a marriage is registered, a woman’s residency is then updated to that of her husband’s official hometown. As a result, married women are barred from competing in both municipal and parliamentary elections in their places of birth or hometown—the area she is most familiar with, and most importantly, known to the electoral community. In addition, a woman permanently loses her position if she gets married during her term and would need to register in another district. This rule discriminates against women specifically and works to demotivate and discourage women to run for local and national office.
The electoral law permits voters to have two votes. First, they select a single list running in their major district, and then cast a vote for an individual candidate on that list in the sub-district (preferential vote). This electoral law hinders women's successful candidacies by limiting voting to a set party list where women bear a small chance of being included. Additionally, the law requires voters to prioritize candidates within this list, and women are rarely prioritized. By the list deadline on March 27th of 2018, 77 lists comprising 597 candidates were formed. 86 women were officially registered, a decrease from the 113 who had initially announced their candidacy. This decrease occurred because many women could not secure their names on electoral lists due to the requirements of the new electoral law.
The integral role religion plays in politics affects women, especially in traditionally conservative religions that do not view political leadership as a women’s role. Rima Fakhry, senior member of the Hezbollah’s political bureau, a conservative Shiite political party, stated “the women movement considers that women should reach decision-making positions. For them, it is in parliament. We differ with those movements.” Hezbollah did not nominate any female candidates in the 2018 election.
In Lebanon, one's religion and political party are synonymous. The 8 political parties that have governed the parliament since 1991 remain as the predominant political forces in the country. Of the total number of current members of parliament, only 10% ran on independent party lists. Therefore, women who are not nominated to run on these political parties’ lists have a slim chance of winning a seat. Women have historically not held positions of power in these political parties, and as a result, were not granted equal representation on party electoral lists. According to data obtained in 2009, women occupy a minority of positions on the executive councils in the following prominent political parties: Future Movement (5%), Lebanese Forces (14%), Phalangist Party (9%), Free Patriotic Movement (32%), and Amal (20%).
Of the 86 female candidates who ran in 2018, 94% ran as independents. Only one female independent was successful in securing a seat. The other five current female members of parliament all belonged to prominent political parties and ran on their party lists. Among the ruling parties, the Future Movement, headed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, nominated the highest number of female candidates: a mere 4 out of 37 total nominees. Therefore, the influence of male-dominated political parties, coupled with the role of religion, provides an additional barrier for women who choose to enter politics.
Political Familism
Political familism refers to the privileging of family in the political realm, and has been a central component to the success of female candidates to date. The select number of women who have won seats in parliament are referred to as “the women dressed in black,” denoting they are mourning the loss of a family member who was a political martyr. The norms of kinship work to further legitimize political familism in Lebanon, giving rise to a system designed to alienate women who lack blood ties to male political icons. This further impedes the ability for women who do not have ties to prominent political parties to succeed as candidates.
Political leadership has endured through familial lines, and is typically passed down from father to son, or to brother. Most political parties in Lebanon are political blocs, based on family allegiances and composed of loyal followers. In the extenuating circumstance where a man is unable to assume the position leading a political bloc, daughters, wives, or sisters are the successors. The presumption that men should succeed in political institutions perpetuates and institutionalizes “political familism within the state apparatus, and promotes electoral familial politics.” Currently, all major political parties are headed by the sons or brothers of its founders.
Occasionally, sisters or wives step into political positions when their husbands or siblings cannot. Sethrida Geagea became a member of parliament and headed her husband’s (Samir Geagea, founder of the Lebanese Forces) political party when he was imprisoned. She is one of the current six female members of parliament. Similarly, Nayla Mouawad and Solange Bashir Gemayel became members of parliament when their husbands died in the late 1900s. Prior to the 2018 election, the majority of female members of parliament had been related to martyred or long-standing male political leaders.
“Different causes, shared anger” march on International Women’s Day. Photo by Joelle Hatem.
Small Victories for Lebanese Women
Though the various obstacles women face in Lebanon paint a grim picture, there are several achievements to be celebrated. The increase in women candidates, from 12 in 2009, to 86 in 2018, is a milestone for women in several respects. For the first time in Lebanese history, women from all ends of the political and religious spectrum are challenging traditional gender norms by putting their names on the ballot. Although there are certainly numerous barriers to overcome, the possibility of significant reform is attainable now more than ever before. Dubbed the thawra (revolution), demonstrators have been crowding the streets since 2019, calling for various reforms in the country. Women have been at the forefront of the protests since day one, advocating for reform to the country’s broken political and economic system and an end to systemic discrimination. While it is uncertain whether true change will occur in the face of many obstacles, the opportunity has surely presented itself for women to write themselves a new future, beginning with a long overdue call for a gender quota.
Janine Nassar is a senior at Barnard College majoring in Political Science and Human Rights and is currently serving as a Managing Editor at CPR.