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A Conversation with May Rihani

May Rihani will discuss her new book, Cultures Without Borders, the memoir of a Lebanese woman whose life defies Western stereotypes about Arab women. Rihani, who has traveled to 71 countries and has worked in more than 40, discovers that the common ground among cultures eclipses the differences.

Date & Time

Thursday
Dec. 4, 2014
12:00pm – 1:00pm ET

Location

6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

May Rihani, the former Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative, discussed her new book, Cultures Without Borders, building on her experience in international development and focusing on girls’ education and women’s empowerment.

On December 4, 2014, the Middle East Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center hosted a book event “A Conversation with May Rihani” with Rihani, former Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative. Michael Van Dusen, Senior Advisor at the Woodrow Wilson Center, moderated the event.

Rihani began by explaining that Cultures Without Borders is a memoir focusing on the impact of girls’ education and women’s empowerment throughout the world. She stated the book discusses many important shared values that exist among different countries and cultures. She said this common ground, which her career exposed her to and allowed her to understand, is important for people to embrace in order to become global citizens. Rihani described the transformative power of girls’ education, which she has seen help societies and cultures take valuable steps forward. With a significant gap between the number of boys and girls being educated in Africa, Asia, and parts of the Middle East, she stressed the importance of identifying the reasons why girls are not attending school in these parts of the world. Among the reasons she discussed were the need for girls’ labor at home, security concerns caused by long distances to schools, misinterpretation of religion, early marriages, and patriarchal societies interpreting female roles.

Rihani then outlined the benefits of girls’ education, highlighting how it increases the age of marriage for women, reduces the chance of infant mortality among educated women’s children, and allows women to become more engaged in their communities. Furthermore, she stressed how educated women are more involved in household decisions and are less subjected to traditional gender roles. Regarding the role of religion as an impediment to girls’ education, Rihani offered an anecdote about her experience in the Peshawar region of Pakistan where she was reviewing girls’ education and exploring why girls were so significantly underrepresented in schools. She said that one person explained that religious leaders were telling parents not to send their girls to school. In response, she quoted the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, in which the Prophet states that education is the duty of both Muslim men and women. She concluded her discussion by describing how her book finds not only common ground, but also common solutions to global problems.

In the question and answer portion of the event, Rihani emphasized how people must never become satisfied with the progress made in girls’ education. She discussed how important it is to stress to governments the significant economic benefits that improved girls’ education will bring. Additionally, those striving to achieve such goals cannot only work with the ministers of education, but with all leaders and politicians throughout different ministries and the government. Rihani also underlined how solutions to the varying problems in girls’ education must be tailored differently for each country and be developed not by outsiders, but by those within the society. Van Dusen expressed his admiration for the successful female entrepreneurs in the Middle East and the great impact they are having, but suggested that they could do more, especially in rural areas, to inspire and empower other women. Rihani ended by highlighting the important role that men play as partners in the pursuit of improving girls’ education around the world.

By John Daniels, Middle East Program

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Speaker

May Rihani

Former Co-Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative
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Hosted By

Middle East Program

The Wilson Center’s Middle East Program serves as a crucial resource for the policymaking community and beyond, providing analyses and research that helps inform U.S. foreign policymaking, stimulates public debate, and expands knowledge about issues in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.  Read more

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