Re-Writing Arab Tales from a Gender-Sensitive Perspective
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The Women and Memory Forum has started holding a series of workshops on “RewritingArab Tales from a Gender-Sensitive Perspective: Preliminary
Experiments”. The first meeting took place over a period of two days (2nd –3rd March
1998), during which a definition of a gender-sensitive perspective in reading and writing a text was attempted: two tales were analysed and discussed by the participants, followed by a re-writing of the selected “source” tales.The Forum has been holding a meeting twice a month to analyse and re-write various Arab and Egyptian tales. The workshop consists of a homogeneous group of Egyptian women, working in professionally diverse areas: creative writing, literary criticism, social and cultural history, in addition to the theatre. The participants share a great interest in women and gender issues. The group includes the following members: Amal Omar, Dalia Bassiouny, Iman Ghazala, Hala Sami, Hoda Elsadda, Mona Brens, Mona Ibrahim, Mounira Soliman, Omaima Abou-Bakr, Rania Abdel Rahman, Sahar Elmogy, Sahar Sobhi, Soha Raafat, Somaya Ramadan, and Hala Kamal.
 
The participants have succeeded in coming out with “new” versions of the selected texts, which include tales from Alf Layla wa Layla (The Arabian Nights), folktales in colloquial Egyptian and Egyptian folk ballads. The workshop’s starting point was an analysis of the image of women as projected in the “source” texts, which usually portray women according to the prevalent stereotypical representations. The re-writing process aims at subverting such stereotypes, challenging the existing models, and promoting alternative -more equitable- representations of both men and women.
 
It is worth noting that the “new” - rewritten- versions include texts in both colloquial Egyptian and standard Arabic. The re-written versions vary in their relation to the “source” texts. Some remain very close to their source, with minor changes of specific elements. Others, however, present a more flexible rendering of the “source” tale, free from its structure and details. In addition to the former versions, a number of short stories were written very remotely related to the “source” texts: inspired rather than based on the tales.
 
The following is a product of the workshop. Rania Abdel Rahman presents in her text “Tears” a different reading and a “new” version of the popular Egyptian folktale “Sitt el- Husn wel Saba’ Gid’an”. The tale describes the journey taken by Sitt el-Husn in search of her seven brothers. It includes various stereotypes of women, such as the envious neighbour who succeeds in sending the seven sons away from their mother. In her attempt to bring her seven brothers back to their mother, Sitt el-Husn agrees to marry the man who promises to break the spell which turned her brothers into seven bulls. The Ghoula had bewitched them to avenge their killing her spouse the Ghoul. Sitt el- Husn, on the other hand, is turned into a pigeon by her husband’s first wife. At the end of the tale, Sitt el-Husn’s husband manages to break the magic spell, so the girl and her seven brothers are back to their human form. He then takes revenge from his first wife as well as the Ghoula by burning them alive.
 
Hala Kamal

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