Here’s a list of what women want!

Let’s picture this scenario together: what if Zainab Zeaiter (femicide victim in Lebanon) had been the one who suspected her husband of cheating and killed him? Would his family have released a video in solidarity with the (female) murderer claiming victory for her “honor” and that of her family? Would she have escaped legal accountability? Would she have been considered a valiant heroine for having washed off her shame and the shame of her clan? Absolutely not. Nor is this an outcome we’d ever wish for.

But reversing the roles could offer some clarity to those who keep asking, “What more do you want? We gave you all your rights,” by helping them better understand the different forms of violence and discrimination practiced against us. Crimes are justified if men are the perpetrators and women the victims, but if the situation is reversed, it is natural and expected for the woman to be unanimously condemned, no questions asked.

A few days ago, Zainab Zeaiter was killed in cold blood in Choueifat, Mount Lebanon, just like Roula Yacoub was murdered in 2013 in Halba, North Lebanon. Many other women have shared their fate: Liliane Allaw in Hermel, Latifa Kassir, Zeina Kanjo, Ruqayya Mounther, Rana Beaino, Zahraa al-Kabout, Sara al-Amin…

It may seem harsh to list the names of victims, but the point is not to dig up pains that we haven’t even forgotten about in the first place—we simply see this list to be a fit response to people who think everything is fine here in Lebanon, and who brush us off as just some more feminists who like to exaggerate, sulk, and shout.

Here are some rights that we want and do not have, in hopes that we can stop bothering you once we get them:

The right to life

First, we lack the right to life. The right to not be killed under flimsy pretexts like “honor,” or suspicion of infidelity, or because he came home angry, or because she didn’t do as he said, or because he’s mentally ill, or all of the above combined. Where is the honor in murder? What is honorable about a man using his physical strength and his social, legal, and economic privileges to abuse a woman and beat her to death?

We want the right to life, to put an end to this undeclared massacre. And this doesn’t stop at miserable legislations that need a thousand amendments. Real change happens on an individual level, in the minds of the people drafting laws and those required to implement them. It has to happen in the minds of the people who confidently and without fear violate these laws. Custom is stronger than legal text, and clans are stronger than the state. We want every person who murders and abuses women to be held accountable without any intervention and without the people involved feeling sorry for the perpetrator because the victim “cheated” or was “dishonorable” according to the story of her killer and his/her family.

We lack the right to life, the right to not be killed under flimsy pretexts like “honor”

Prohibiting the marriage of minors

Forever. We want the crime of child marriage to stop. Girls need to be allowed to continue their educations, to play and have fun. No one should be able to take their dolls out of their little hands, which are much too small to carry and feed a baby. Children cannot handle marriage with all its complex and often violent details. We want this to be written into a clear law, one without equivocation or hidden clauses waiting to blow up in our faces.

To avoid being accused once again of exaggeration and slander, we regretfully share that according to a report published by the United Nations in 2019, one in every five young women between 20 and 24 years old, everywhere in the world, was married before reaching the age of 18 – compared to one in every 30 young men. Zainab Zeaiter is one such victim of this violent practice.

Ending male guardianship

Third, we want to end all forms of patriarchal guardianship over our choices, our bodies, and our dreams. We want everyone to understand that we are independent entities with opinions, moods, and whims, and not tools for reproduction, cooking, dishwashing, and endurance. We don’t want to endure anymore. We don’t want our lives to be considered a secondary issue that it’s not the time to discuss, or as something that fails to fall within the scope of strategic and national priorities. We want now to be the time for accountability, so that no more women are killed, and no more are buried between tightly closed walls.

Spiritual and Sharia courts are often nothing but another slaughterhouse for the torture of women

No more victim-blaming

“What were you wearing for him to have harassed you?”, “It’s your fault,” “Why did you give him the space to do that?”, “What did you do for him to have hit you?”, “It’s because you’re so independent”…

These sentences and questions feel like a final stab to victims of violence, rape, and harassment, but they have the opposite effect on the perpetrator who feels satisfied by the reduced impact of his crime, the blame being placed on women’s shoulders. There is nothing easier than putting a woman on trial, stoning her, making her feel small, and silencing her: all the tools to do so are readily available, as is social support. Everyone is ready to blame the victim.

No more Sharia trials

Spiritual and Sharia courts are often nothing but another slaughterhouse for the torture of women, depriving them of their rights to custody, guardianship, parental authority, and freedom. We want the right to leave any relationship that doesn’t suit us without it coming at the expense of our love for our children and our private lives after divorce. We want not to be made to choose between our children and our freedom, our children or building a new life for ourselves after separation.

These are only some of the basic rights we want for ourselves. Add to them: closing the gender wage gap and ending gender discrimination in access to administrative and political positions. Job offers should be made according to competence. The day all this becomes reality may be the day we have less reasons to shout. Maybe then we’ll be able to smile without feeling pangs of grief. We don’t enjoy all this shouting—but it’s all we have left. What you brush off as “sulking” we see as lost rights, and the exaggeration you accuse us of is just a description of reality. No one knows the full extent of what every woman on this planet goes through.