Rebecca Ghanem and Kristie Rahal: Two Lebanese barbers challenging gender norms

In Lebanon, stepping into a barbershop and seeing a woman behind the chair is still rare. But across Tripoli and Beirut, two women, Rebecca Ghanem and Kristy Rahal, have subtly built up careers for themselves in a profession long reserved for men.Their journeys took different roads, but both arrived at the same conviction: talent, persistence and purpose matter more than tradition. L'Orient Today met with them to talk about their respective experiences.Mobile barberRebecca never imagined she would wield clippers professionally. “I had spent twelve years working as a sales consultant,” she recalls. “I studied marketing at university and thought I would stay in that field forever.”But Lebanon’s economic collapse, political instability, and financial crisis forced her to rethink everything. The 2019 uprising, followed by the lockdown...