-“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Shakespeare
In a world where
women are compelled to follow a certain model of appropriate feminine behaviour,
to please never to protest, to be silenced never to speak, debate opens new horizons
for women to make their voices heard. Such is my journey with debate within the
Yong Arab Voices programme. When I joined the project in 2015, I had no idea that
debating could be the empowerment I needed to finally be able to step up, break
the circle of silence imposed on me by years of traditional education, and help
other “ladies” make their voices heard. Throughout the training I had with YAV,
I learned how to structure my ideas, how to question assumptions, how to detect
fallacies and how to make my protest and voice count. More significant was the opportunity
YAV offered me to share my passion for debate and to help young people and more
specifically women and girls gain confidence in themselves, cross the threshold
of imposed silence, and speak up. Debate, I believe, empowers women and young people
with the appropriate tools to be active agents of change in their communities: not
only does it boost our self confidence, rhetorical skills and analytic mind; it
also offers us an opportunity to formally discuss a wide range of topics with varying
degrees of complexity outside our own fields of study. I found myself discussing
topics such as state interventionism in economy, Middle East policies,
refugees’ crisis and even football which is considered a “men-exclusive” topic.
The debate experience proved, first to myself, and to others that there are no topics
that should not be discussed by women, young people, children, certain groups etc.
and that there is no prefabricated image of what a lady should or should not do
or be; after all the
lady is a debater!
Rima Mansour
A University Teacher, a Researcher and a Debate Trainer with the YAV program
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