Society
Lebanese society is very modern and similar to certain cultures of Mediterranean Europe as the country is "linked ideologically and culturally to Europe through France, and its uniquely diverse ethnic and religious composition a rare environment that at once Arab and European. It is often considered as Europe's gateway to Western Asia as well as Asia's gateway to the Western World.
By comparison to most other Arab capitals, Beirut is more westernized and more socially liberal. Compared to Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad, and especially in contrast to such cities as Riyadh, Beirut is more tolerant with regard to relations between men and women, and also with regard to homosexuality.
Notwithstanding the persistence of traditional attitudes regarding the role of women, Lebanese women enjoy equal civil rights and attend institutions of higher education in large numbers (for example, women constituted 41 percent of the student body at the American University of Beirut in 1983). Although women in Lebanon have their own organizations, most exist as subordinate branches of the political parties.
While gay sex is technically illegal, Beirut has a number of gay bars and nightclubs, in addition to two LGBT rights organizations, namely Helem and Meem.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Lebanon
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“The best way to rise in society is to use all possible means of persuading people that one has already risen in society.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Throughout the history of commercial life nobody has ever quite liked the commission man. His function is too vague, his presence always seems one too many, his profit looks too easy, and even when you admit that he has a necessary function, you feel that this function is, as it were, a personification of something that in an ethical society would not need to exist. If people could deal with one another honestly, they would not need agents.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)