The nineteenth-century encounter between the Arab Ottoman provinces and Western culture sparked a public discussion in Greater Syria, of issues such as modernization, patriotism, cultural identity, and the local desire to reconstruct Arab society. In the evolving discourse, in which women took a vivid if modest part, women were first considered to be key players in these broad public processes because of their role in educating the next generation who would shape the future of the homeland. Gradually, however, the discourse shifted into other topics, such as women's activity and rights within the public sphere. In this paper I propose to focus on one side of these public exchanges which has scarcely been researched so far: the discussion of Arab women's electoral rights before World War I. I will show that women writing in Arabic and expressing themselves in public used a direct/indirect voice and subtext rhetoric to promote their suffrage as well as other political rights. I will point to interactions between Arab women and their counterparts in Western movements (mainly US and UK Suffragists) and show that, while the local debate was influenced by the Western discourse, it sought to project itself as a local manifestation of Arab feminism. The paper will be based on the Ottoman Arab press (newspapers and periodicals), that were published in big numbers in Greater Syria and Egypt from the 1890's until 1914. It will make an innovative contribution to the history of women during the closing decades of Ottoman history and, more generally, to the history of the Ottoman-Arab popular quest for social and political rights.