By Dayane Hussein | Staff Writer

“Lebanon is like a girl raped 7 times a day by the protectors of the constitution.” This is what the former judge in the Lebanese state council Chikri Sadek said during an interview with “Here Beirut” on a national TV channel “Al Jadeed”. It’s disturbing to watch sexism from the 40s on national TV in 2021.

The fact that a former judge/public figure associates femininity with dependency, fragility, vulnerability to damage, and violability is a central problem in his assertion. There are numerous ways someone can explain that the government is corrupt, yet he resorted to the use of disgusting and misogynistic terms rooted in rape culture! What is the added value of this? Why is it necessary to equate Lebanon’s collapse to a woman being raped?

Another unacceptable aspect of this statement is how someone could even have the audacity to promote the idea that raped women are vulnerable on national TV? As we all know, rape culture is maintained through using misogynistic language, objectifying women’s bodies, and glamorizing sexual assault, resulting in a society that disregards women’s rights and safety.

What makes the problem even worse is the fact that, according to Khanna & Harris (2015), the media is an “effective tool in conveying sociological conceptions and theories regarding race, class, and gender inequality.”  This signifies that whether these lessons are actively learned or passively absorbed, the effects of what is portrayed in the media have a significant impact on how individuals view the world around them and behave in their daily lives.

That being said, Lebanese politicians have continuously been given a free platform to express their sexism and pro-patriarchal beliefs. This is a serious issue since it not only reinforces, but also normalizes microaggression towards women. Truth be told, you honestly cannot expect the people who are failing miserably at saving a collapsed country to even have a rudimentary moral compass. 

It doesn’t stop there; Prime Minister Najib Mikati, for example, prefers to disparage women in order to defend his government’s failure to handle the problem. The best Mikati could do to describe Lebanon on Independence Day in a time of national distress was to equate it to “a divorced woman’s wedding anniversary“. 

It’s no surprise that women are subjected to gendered stereotypes -a divorced woman seems to be no exception. The way society labels divorced women is revolting: The divorcee appears to be permanently entrapped, from being constantly sized up, viewed as suffering from mental, and psychological disorders, and most notably, considered a failure. 

Indeed, media has one of the most significant and widespread impacts on how we regard men and women. However, in a country with one of the highest ratios of gender inequality, where personal status and citizenship laws are discriminatory, and women are more vulnerable to abuse, the way women are portrayed in the media is nothing unusual.