|
Women of Beirut
prowl for mates
BEIRUT: This is a city of
nightclubs, but the night life is something else
these days, and not just because of the feverish
edge sharpened by the war last summer.
 By
8 p.m., women in their 20s and early 30s are
prowling in packs of five and six, casting
meaningful glances at any and all passing men. In
the bars the women dance for hours - often on top of
the bar - and legs, midriffs, bare shoulders and
barely covered bosoms are offered for public
admiration.
Samir Khalaf, a professor of
sociology at the American University of Beirut, said
the scene astonished his American colleagues. "They
are just shocked," he said. "'This is Lebanon, the
Middle East?' they say. They can't stop talking
about all the belly buttons, about all these highly
eroticized bodies. You see it everywhere here, this
combination of consumerism and postmodernism and
female competition."
For a few weeks twice a year, after
Ramadan and before Christmas, thousands of Lebanon's
young men return from jobs abroad - and run smack
into one of the world's most aggressive cultures of
female display. Young women of means have spent
weeks primping and planning how to sift through as
many men as possible in the short time available.
The austere month of Ramadan ended a week ago.
The country's high rate of
unemployment pushes the young men to seek work
elsewhere, sometimes in Western countries like
France and Canada, but mainly in the United Arab
Emirates, Saudi Arabia and the other oil states on
the Gulf. The women, inhibited by family pressures,
are generally left behind.
 "The
demographic reality is truly alarming," Khalaf said.
"There are no jobs for university graduates, and
with the boys leaving, the sex ratios are simply out
of control. It is now almost five to one: five young
girls for every young man. When men my sons' age
come back to Lebanon, they can't keep the girls from
leaping at them."
For the men, who return with deep
pockets and high spirits, the holiday welcome is
gratifying.
"In Doha it is completely
impossible, because you can't talk to women in the
Gulf," said Wisam Hamdan, 35, back from Qatar, where
he manages hairdressing salons. "But Lebanese girls
are very friendly. I am hoping to meet lots of
girls, and then I will pick one."
The other night Roula Hallak, 27,
was wandering the bars of Gemmayzeh, an eastern
Beirut neighborhood, with a troupe of six
meticulously dressed and made-up girlfriends.
 "I'm
not looking, but she is, and so is she," Hallak
said, poking two of them, who giggled and declined
to give their names. "It's so hard to meet the
perfect guy this way, but there are so many out in
Beirut at this time of year. You go out and you look
and you're always hoping."
According to Khalaf, Lebanese
Christians have been migrating for economic reasons
since Ottoman times. But as the nation's economic
crisis has deepened, the exodus has come to include
young men from all religious groups and across the
socioeconomic spectrum, as well as a tiny but
growing number of young women.
Over the past two decades, the Gulf
has become the economic pole, and its pull has only
grown stronger since the monthlong war this summer
between Israel and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
With the political situation here still so
uncertain, investment and work opportunities are
growing even scarcer, and the gender imbalance
worsens.
For young women here, dressing fashionably is a
competitive game; stare- down contests between young
women in restaurants and malls are common.
Kareen Yazbek, a Beirut
psychologist, says that the lack of available men is
a constant theme in her discussions with young women
recovering from depression and drug addiction.
 "Throughout
my practice, the main issue that comes up with many
young women is that they can't find anyone to be
with or to marry," Yazbek said. "Among college-age
girls it's not such a problem, but after graduation
there's a big change as the men start seeking work
outside of Lebanon."
"The social pressures on young women
are just huge," Yazbek continued. "The focus is more
and more on being beautiful, on pleasing other
people. The competition is intense, conformity is a
big thing, and everyone, rich and poor, gets plastic
surgery. You can go to parts of Beirut where almost
every young woman has the same little nose."
And the big prize, all seem to
agree, is the attention of one of the visiting
native sons.
 "The
guys that remain in Lebanon are the stupid ones!"
exclaimed Nayiri Kalayjian, 19, who was hitting the
bars on Monot Street, in central Beirut, with three
girlfriends.
"We're too good for them," she said. "The ones who
remain in Lebanon are the ones with closed
mentalities, the ones who just want a virgin girl.
You start to feel that the men who stay in Lebanon
are the ones with no ambition in their work, and so
you wonder, why are they still here?"
|
