BAHITHAT AL-LUBNANIYYAT, AL-

Nonpartisan women's organization.

The Association of Lebanese Women Researchers was officially registered in 1992, although a group of female scholars had been meeting informally since the early 1980s, during the Lebanese Civil War. These women increasingly felt the need for a space and a forum in which to share their opposition to the war, to political division, and to confessionalism within the Lebanese system. In 2003, the association had thirty-five members. Most were published scholars, professors at the various universities in Lebanon, who prided themselves on their religious and ideological diversity and on the democratic principles upon which the association was founded.

Since the mid-1990s, the association has held conferences, such as the 2001 conference on Arab women in the 1920s, and published proceedings. Its most visible publication is the annual Bahithat, a multilingual collection of essays on various themes, including "Women and Writing," "Women and Politics in Lebanon and the Arab World," and "The West in Arab Societies." The association regularly puts out scholarly books on subjects like television media, women and nongovernmental organzations in Lebanon, and Lebanese female writers. Further activities include monthly research workshops and seasonal retreats, as well as occasional outreach programs.

Bahithat fills a need in Lebanon. Although other women's organizations exist, the association remains nonpartisan and autonomous of institutional or financial dicta. However, because its focus has been on published research, and not on socio-political activism, its impact has not always been measurable.

see also gender: gender and education; lebanon.

Elise Salem