Doe: A Deer; a Female Deer
September 2026 Bulletin
Just as names sometimes impose themselves, so do alphabets; or at least some of them. Our June bulletin was a P bulletin par excellence. This one ‘decided’ to be a D bulletin. Up to the challenge? Good. Let’s go: a catch-22 will swing us into a joke, after which we’re determined to land safely.
The call for submissions for this bulletin was titled Determined to Decide, and frankly, it’s a nasty piece of brainteaser: How can you be determined without deciding, and how can you decide without being allowed to. The joke has an answer.
A man marvels at his friend’s decades of friction-free marriage. “How do you never fight?” The friend sighs. “Easy. When we married, we agreed on who decides what: small daily matters for her, big matters for me.” “Like what?” “Oh, the usual: where and how we live, the kids’ schools, the finances, the bills, the loans, the friends. You know, the small stuff.” “So what are the big matters?” The friend shrugs. “Global peace and security.”
Funny, until you notice who’s been running the household all along, and who’s been “deciding” the world from the sidelines. The punchline is a confession. The man who claims the big matters has dumped every actual decision to the woman, then kept the title. It’s a claim as old as history, one that Naji al-Ali probably wouldn’t have minded. He wanted to believe that Rashida Mahran did the deciding (if not across board, at least in the word-world of authorship and journalism). Ironically, many agree with him, especially those who would like to believe that that cartoon may have cost him his life.
The household, it turns out, is a parliament; and it has never once held a quorum without a woman in it; whether standing tall, or seated. (Shall we not forget "اقعدي يا هند" [sit down, ya Hind]) Indeed, we’d rather “Remain Seated … for Landing.” What landing? D-Day, what else?
The D-Day we’re talking about is the day a woman discovers her “no” is a complete sentence. The day she stops being determined-for, and becomes determining. It’s the internal landing. The moment decision stops being permission-seeking and becomes self-authorship.
So fasten your seatbelt, but don't stay seated for long. Because once you land on your own two feet, you get to rock; in both senses: the thriving, owning-your-ground kind; and the kind that moves to music. For our suggested inspiring mini-playlist, choose to your heart's liking: classic Julie Andrews in Doe … a deer … a female deer; a bit more Levantine with Micheline Bandaly’s Ghazaleh; or best of all, rock with Toni Hanna’s dabkeh Fleeing Gazelle.
Let it be your D-Day. Decide your destiny. You’re a doe, you’re a doer.
“This bulletin has been produced with the financial assistance of CFI, Expertise France and the European Union. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of the Beneficiary and may under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of CFI, Expertise France and the EU.”
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