Re-writing Arab Fairy Tales from a Gender Perspective
News
WMF published a collection of fairytales entitled Her Tale. The book includes examples of gender sensitive rewritten fairytales and feminist stories as well as a section with the source texts. In an introduction to the book, Hala Kamal, coordinator of the WMF Feminist Fairytales Project and the editor of the book, sheds light on the use of language, writing, perspective and the feminist voice in the rewritten versions. She is particularly concerned with forms of countering the misrepresentations of women in popular culture.
As part of the monthly seminars, WMF held a discussion (February 2000) on Her Tale and invited Dr. Nabila Ibrahim, Professor of Folk Literature at Cairo University, Mr. Helmy El Namnam, critic and journalist, and Dr. Nehad Selaiha, Professor of Drama and Criticism at the Academy of Arts, to talk about the book. The seminar focused on discussing different aspects of the book: the folkloric aspect, the idea of rewriting history, the literary aspect, and the theatrical form of the storytelling events and their role in promoting the idea of rewriting fairytales from a gender-sensitive perspective.
WMF held two storytelling events as part of the project activities. The first one was held during the Qasim Amin commemorative conference at the Supreme Council for Culture (October 1999), and the second one was held at the American University in Cairo (February 2000). The group of storytellers tried to develop the performative elements of storytelling through the use of folkloric motifs. This was mainly achieved through the costumes and the accompanying music.