“I want to be involved in promoting gender equality”

Gabriella Soriano has just started her first semester in the Middle East and Mediterranean programme on the Sciences Po campus in Menton. Gabriella wants to work to promote women's rights in the Middle East and, more generally, wherever gender inequality persists.The fifth in our series #FirstYearsScPo.

Why did you choose Sciences Po?

I really liked the arts at school. I was particularly into history and philosophy. I wasn't very keen to specialize; I much preferred the idea of a multidisciplinary curriculum, where the emphasis is on the sort of critical analysis, the ability to take a step back and to question, which is inherent to the education offered at Sciences Po.

And why the Menton campus in particular?

I'm Lebanese on my mother's side and Italian-American on my father's side. Anything concerning the Middle East concerns me. I am very interested in the sociopolitical issues of the whole region, and particularly in my native country, Lebanon. I was born there, but I don't have Lebanese nationality because my mother married a foreigner, and in Lebanon a woman who marries a foreigner cannot pass on her nationality to her children. So because of that law, I've been deprived of a part of my origins. That's one of the reasons I chose Sciences Po's Middle East-Mediterranean programme.
Apart from that, the studies offered here focus on international relations and I feel that this campus will be the ideal springboard into my career. More specifically, I would like to be involved in promoting and protecting women's rights.

What do you mean exactly?

In Lebanon, I am not regarded as a citizen because my Lebanese mother married a foreigner. I'm considered a foreign resident in my own country. It's not fair! Women should benefit from the same fundamental rights as men. There is a lot of sexism in the Middle East. Honour killings still affect many women in Lebanon, in the more traditional regions. But inequalities affect women throughout the world. Just look at the pay gap between women and men in America!

Where do you think you are headed over the next five or ten years?

I read a lot of militant and feminist literature, such as Angela Davis, bell Hooks and another African-American activist, Maya Angelou, as well as the Egyptian feminist writer Nawal el Saadawi. I hope to absorb all that so that I can advance in line with my commitment to social equality and humanist values.

What's it like to study on the Mediterranean coast? Discover our campus in Menton