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The Lebanese Women Researchers (Bahithat) is currently compiling a directory of Arab Women Researchers in the Social Sciences and Humanities. The idea of this project emerged from the first meeting of Arab Women Researchers, which was held in the summer of 1996. The committee in charge of the project comprises Noha Bayoumi (co-ordinator), Fadia Hutait, and Mariam Al-Ghandour. The project aims at compiling a database with the view to create a network that would link Arab women researchers in the fields specified. The directory is to be published at the end of 1998, together with a web page on the Internet. A side benefit of the directory will be the highlighting of the intellectual achievements of Arab women in recent years and the degree to which those women have contributed in the current process of questioning the status quo and their attempts at effecting change.
 
Noha Bayoumi -member of the Lebanese Women Researchers (Bahithat) and co-ordinator of the Arab women researchers directory– is currently engaged in studying the political role of women in the city of Sidon, from the fifties to the post civil war period. Noha has contributed a research paper on the topic in the fourth Bahithat Book, which was published in April 1998. She has relied in her study on oral history, primarily due to the absence of written sources and archival material on the topic. Noha is also jointly involved with Jean Maqdissi, Nahawand al-Kadery Issa, Fadia Hutait and So’ad Harb in finalising the fifth Bahithat Book entitled Images of the West in Arab Societies. Noha will contribute a paper to the book, which studies the nature of relations –specifically love– with western characters in Arabic novels.
 
The centre of Appropriate Communication Techniques for
Development in Egypt (ACT) is in the process of putting together a gender training manual. The project hopes to streamline gender concepts in work situations inside both NGOs and other institutions across the fields of human rights, legal help, pressure campaigns, as well as education and the media. It also aims to develop and produce training and educational tools, which include research monographs and guidebooks pertaining to discrimination against women in a variety of situations.
ACT held a round table consultative meeting in the Arab Scouts Centre on 22nd March 1998, in which a number of subjects were discussed: the historical and cultural heritage that led to the creation of current concepts with regards to gender relations; the impact of socio-economic factors on legislations pertaining to those relations; the role of the media, art, educational and religious institutions in forming consciousness or emphasizing stereotypes. The topics listed above were discussed within the framework of the actual research, informational and training needs. Discussion also touched upon the role of NGOs in dealing with imminent challenges and devising possible forms of resistance.
 
Ms. Haifaa Khalafallah delivered a lecture entitled “The Future of Islamic Law and the Status of Women in Egypt” in April 1998, the first in a series of monthly seminars organised by WMF. In 1993, Ms. Khalafallah obtained a diploma in Law at the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom. She is currently finishing her research on “Continuity and Change in Islamic Law” for a doctoral degree at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., where she teaches a course on “The History of Fiqh”.
 
The Women and Memory Forum hosted the Egyptian feminist theatre director Dalia Basiouny who presented her research on the staging and production of The Love of the Nightingale – a play on violence and the silencing of women written by Timberlake Wertenbaker. The presentation was followed by a reading - in colloquial Arabic- of two scenes from the play translated by Dalia. This was followed by a discussion led by Nawla Darwich with the aim of investigating how women’s groups can support theatrical performances as well as use them in addressing vital issues such as violence against women, and disseminating them to a wider audience. The event was held on 19th May 1998 as part of the monthly seminars held at the WMF office.

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