English

Daniel sent me this:  "The Lebanese Sandra Ghosn, 28, lives between Beirut, where she was born and raised, and Paris, where she currently lives. She is an illustrator as well as a photographer.  Among the highlights of her career is participating in the cutting-edge magazine "Samandal".  In terms of women's rights in Lebanon, Ghosn points out the difference between different generations. "My generation is liberated!"  She chooses to illustrate this point by drawing a Beirut party scene. "This is how my generation behaves today", she says. The country celebrates a better human rights record. The proportion of younger married women is among the lowest in the Arab world (10%). In Yemen, it is more than 35%.  Other statistics show less success: Assaults on women is 35%, in Iraq, 23%."  Other than the fact that the artwork is stunningly bad (this is thoughtless doodling by the young without life experience, not illustration), I would like to know how anyone categorizes
Samandal as a Lebanese magazine just because it is published here--it much more reflects this European idea of this region than any truly local idea. The elitism, classism, and social validity of only a small percentage of the Lebanese population as shown in her "illustration" is just as much of an assault against women as the statistics that are mentioned."