** On the third day of the week, "We are all Laila" received an invitation to participate in the conference "a better tomorrow for women through work and education" to be held on the seventh and eighth of March in the city of Turin, Italy. If you want to participate, you can find more details through this link.

** A blog post far from free of anger was the first spotted the morning of the third day of the Kolena Laila week. In his blog, kulbalsad wrote describing women as Trojan horses who work to bring down the heart and mind of men. He accused women of being evildoers and of being the source of moral decay, giving the example of the recent article by Saudi Arabian Nadine Al Bedir who called for allowing women to marry four men in response to the insistence of a large segment of Arab men, especially in her country Saudi Arabia, to marry four women, out of what they see as a legitimate, unrestricted right. Kulbalasad’s explanation of the widespread phenomenon of the harassment of women is based on women’s nudity.

On the New Woman blog, several posts were published, all of them can be found on this link. There were a variety of posts that talk about discrimination between males and females, even in the simple pleasures of Nile trips and the society’s criminalization of any display of affection between the sexes in public, which was in Suad Abdul Rasul’s blog post called “Jannat Al Ghalaba” (heaven of the miserable).

The experience of harassment from both the male and the female perspectives was sensitively relayed by Rowaida Magdy in her narrative post "Lahazat attajrobah” (moments of the experience). Another post on the New Woman blog, which is participating very actively this year in our Kolena Laila week, is a post by an anonymous person who described quite simply a sense of stigma associated with the female body and how she learned to hate her body and fear it since childhood, how she was raised to think of her body as something shameful and of her soul as something to hide, and of her femininity, which is a key component of her identity, as a curse or a divine punishment. The post is called “’Aar esmoho al onothah” (Shame that is called femininity).

Dr. Basema Moussa participated with a post on women in the Baha'i faith and the rules imposed by the Baha'i faith on dealing with women. The author offers a description of her childhood which reflected the teachings of the Baha'i faith and its respect for equality in her essay "Laila akheerah men al lailaat al jadeedah” (last night of the new nights).

The controversial title of Hassan Kamal’s post, "Nahwa mojtama’ thokoori” (Towards a patriarchal society), was inconsistent with the content of the article, which criticized patriarchal thinking that deliberately excludes women in the name of protecting them and the role played by customs, traditions and traditional values in the political and social marginalization of women’s rights that were established by the powers of the constitution and laws.

Susan from Jordan wrote on her blog under the heading “Laila the murdered and the victim”, which talks about images of injustice against Laila by Laila through the story of Nora, which has been subjected to the oppression of other women throughout her life. From Libya, Nihad Ali Khalifah tells a story that is missing many elements and details, but remains obvious as a story of suffering that is all too known in Arab societies that collectively suffer from dictatorship, lack of social freedoms, and political injustice, all of which translate into injustice against and violation of women, the weakest of the society, despite the fact that political and economic injustice is also equally committed by both men and women.

On the issue of the veil, prevention or legalization, Rana Abdel-Fattah wrote her essay “to ban or not to ban,” which can be accessed in full via this link.

"A chapter in hating feminism" is the catching title of the post by blogger Abdel-Rahman Mustafa in which he reviewed the positions of various feminists in Egypt and the Arab world and the people who oppose them. Abdul Rahman concluded in his link and reference-rich post that aggression towards feminism results from feminists’ hatred to men and their approach that tends to clash with the community more than it seeks to connect with it in order to realize the rights.

In the first part of her post “Who oppresses Laila?” Souad Khawaja wonders if men alone are to blame for the suffering of Arab women. She points to the obvious responsibility of the clergy and the government through the system of fatwas (advisory religious opinions) and laws that increase the burden on women as well as the legalization of the marriage of minor women and the spread of males’ affairs outside the institution of marriage, all of which contribute to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as AIDS and others. Souad provides a number of statistics and facts that are worthwhile in this issue.

The third day attracted several other posts from Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, all of which can be found through this link.

Disclaimer: Yesterday’s newsletter referred to an article by Rami Nasrallah AlMa’noon titled “A captive’s diary” but the newsletter, namely its editor Azza Maghazi, incorrectly stated the name of the author as Rami Sabri. We apologize for this unintentional error.

Kolena Laila's second day has seen an amazing number of contributions from Syria and Lebanon, the latest being from Beirut News who chose to give a brief note about Kolena Laila's campaign.

Blogger Ninar writes how for two months she was in doubt about what to write; the problems of Arabic women are more complicated and painful to be discussed in one short post on her blog. She even continues by wondering about which Laila should she speak ?

This question has been asked several times every year on Laila's day indicating the complexity of womens' issues and the impossibility of them being solved. Ninar also discusses the mutability of strain that is imposed on her and concludes that the freeing of women in our society is connected to the freeing of men in the first place which at the same time would free our society from the prison of primitive tribe ideology that relies on the relations based on subjugation and submission between the strongest and weakest to reach a society that values humanity and is based on relationships of mutual giving.

From Syria

Author Ramy Abdelrhman writes about the suffering of female prisoners on Arabic prisons in a short story named 'Memories of a Hostage from Syria' as well the announcement of the call of the global day for solidarity of the victims of honor crimes in many Arabic countries. The chosen day is in memory of a court order that made a hero of a man who killed his sister.

The Syrian contributions also included an important article published on Tgrid blog that connected several social problems such as slums, poverty and unemployment to the problems of women and considering all of this as a sign for a backward social situations in Arab countries. She also focused on how these issues are treated in the media.

Rana Abdelfatah published an article on the site which focused on a study about violence against women which was done by the Syrian committee for family affairs and the central Statistics centre in Syria along with the UNIFEM which was published in 2005.

From Libya Entsar Borawy writes on her blog "sfsaf" about the issues that face each Arabic woman that hasn't gotten married by the proper age; beginning with inquisitive looks from people and not ending with being pushed to find a husband by any means!!

Blogger Borawy criticizes the surrender of some girls to these actions which make them feel inferior and end up preferring loneliness and stop getting involved in social activities in their communities.

The issue of Niqab "veil/ face covering" and Al-Azhar was discussed on day two, blogger Naksha criticized the Azhar university's decision of banning women who cover their face from the university campus. Their argument is based on cases of cheating on exams. Naksha sees that this decision is unconstitutional and she continues that Al-Azhar university should find a better solution for the cheating problem that doesn’t effect the personal freedom of students like hiring female security guards to confirm the identities of the students.

Another contribution that discussed the issues of Lailas with special needs by telling the story of Amal whose leg was amputated because of a medical error but despite of that she has been able to succeed in her life you can read her story here.

You can follow the rest of contributions here.