Women and left in the Middle East: the voice of the protagonists. How feminist change occurs in Lebanon: an interview with Azza Chararah Baydoun

This chapter shows a vital journey, among many other possible journeys, of a feminist woman who was a member of a small communist political party in her youth. With the perspective of several decades, Azza Chararah Baydoun reviews the gender relations in this communist organization, the civil war, militancy in non-governmental organizations (NGO) and the main challenges that have been posed to feminism in Lebanon. If the NGO was apolitical, its members were political individuals. From the perspective of social movements, communist parties have commenced the period of NGO ization in Lebanon. One of the indicators of communist organizations, or parties that differentiated it from nationalist ones, was supposedly attitudes towards women. Around the middle of the year 1973, the Organization for Communist Action in Lebanon was inflicted by schism when almost half of its members were expelled.