What better way to start a snowy, cold-raddled day than with the following snippet of female triumph:

On January 22, 35-year-old Laila Ghannam was sworn in before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and became the first ever Palestinian woman, who takes the governor’s post in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) which was established in 1994.

She said that occupying such a high-ranking and sensitive post “is a victory to Palestinian women,” adding that she had received lots of positive reactions and congratulations from different parties and people as soon as she was appointed in her post as the governor of Ramallah. [Source]

More poignantly, and certainly cogently, she affirmed that:

[B]eing religious or being committed to religion, no matter if it is Islam or Christianity, should never keep a woman or anybody else from work or from practicing her or his normal life. [R]eligion is a civilization and provides woman with lots of rights.

Regardless of being a woman or even a man, the new job gave me bigger responsibilities which are more important than my personal relationships. We are just starting, and we are at the beginning. The position of women in the Palestinian society has to be promoted.

Hear, hear!