1920 Activism

Formation of women’s unions and organisations

Beginning in the 1920s, women’s groups, associations, and organisations’ growing activism and advocacy for women’s social and political rights (right to vote and to run for elections) began to take shape. This was manifested in the creation of several societies and associations. As Anbarah Salam Khalidi, a prominent feminist of the time, wrote in her memoir, the 1920s were a time when “feminist activity began to take institutional shape, and Lebanese women’s societies began to thrive.1 Furthermore, the debate regarding the veiling of women in Lebanon culminated in the emergence of camps advocating for and against the act of wearing the veil, and writers such as Nazira Zain al-Din published al-Hijab wa al-Sefour (Veiling and Unveiling, 1928) contributing to this debate.