A protester at the Kfar Abida beach. (Credit: Angela Khalife/L'Orient-Le Jour)
BEIRUT — On Saturday, a resort in the town of Dammour banned two women wearing Burkinis (swim wear worn by hijabi women) from swimming. The move comes just a month after two muslim sheikhs, accompanied by supporters, approached a two couples at Saida's beach and demanded that they leave because the two women were deemed to be "indecently" attired. The couples said the sheikhs' entourage threw tennis balls, plastic bottles of water and sand at them.
"In May, a woman was harassed for wearing a ‘revealing’ swimsuit on a public beach in Saida. Today at a private beach club in Dammour, two women were forbidden from swimming because of their burkinis. Can’t win either way. People need to spend less time policing what women wear," Tweeted journalist Nada Homsi on Saturday.
In May, a woman was harassed for wearing a ‘revealing’ swimsuit on a public beach in Saida.
— Nada Homsi (@No_Homsi) June 11, 2023
Today at private beach club in Dammour, two women forbidden from swimming because of their burkinis.
Can’t win either way.
People need to spend less time policing what women wear.
Contacted by L'Orient Today, Homsi explained that the two hijabi women, who were with their families and children, were allowed in but told by the resort's management that they can't swim. "They told them they can't swim and that they have to sit on the side, " Homsi said. After speaking with the women on Saturday, Homsi said that "in the end the women swallowed their objections because they wanted their kids to have fun, but they were [annoyed]."
Such rules are not uncommon in some private resorts in Lebanon.
"We tried to allow burkinis, but it did not work, people started to take advantage of the rule and wear normal clothes," owner of the Guana Bana resort Jamal Abo Merhi told L'Orient Today. Abo Merhi said that his solution for this was to make his resort exclusive for women on Tuesdays and Thursdays and allow those who wanted to wear a burkini on these days to swim.
Asked why it wasn't okay for people to wear normal clothes in the pool, Abo Merhi said that it is because "the scene is not nice."
Hayat Mirshad, co-founder of the Fe-Male collective and editor-in-chief of the Sharika wa Laken feminist platform, told L'Orient Today "it is clear that there is a problem from this society from its different sects with women and their freedom and their bodies. They put regulations on women and place them in boxes and give themselves the right with the blessing of the law and the government to implement this control on women."
Referring to the incident in Saida where women were attacked for wearing swimsuits Mirshad said. "It is not different for me [than] the women who were attacked for wearing a swimsuit or a burkini… in both cases it is patriarchal, sectarian and is similar to racism because it aligns with the culture of not accepting the other.”