WMF invited Dr. Vivian Fuad, Head of the Coptic Center for Social Studies, to deliver a talk entiled "A Dialogue with Christian and Muslim Scholars about Women and Gender" in October 2003. The talk was essentially the outcome of a unique experience of Dr. Fuad's, that of undertaking a training course on reproductive health (especially Female Genital Mutilation) with groups of priests and imams together. She talked about how the original topic of the course inevitably dealt with issues of gender equality and women's rights. Another interesting observation was the commonality in conservative gender ideology between the two religious discourses and the use of similar religious arguments to support it. Dr. Fuad expressed the view that the real problem was not just religious, but mainly cultural, economic, and political.