From Frida Kahlo to Janis Joplin, art and women’s empowerment have long gone hand in hand. Over the weekend the two joined forces once again in a boisterous festival held at El Sawy Culture Wheel.
Friday’s event, “Making Our Streets Safe for Everyone, was organized by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, and brought together a broad range of feminist and artistic organizations to call for an end to street harassment.
Participating in the event were AUC’s Bussy Project, a ground-breaking Egyptian theatrical project which collects women’s stories and performs them as monologues in a much talked about annual show. Additional support was provided by The Art Review Magazine, founded by the entrepreneurial Metwali sisters and celebrating its one-year anniversary, as well as experts from the American University in Cairo (AUC). Acting as master of ceremonies was popular Nile FM radio personality Mohamed Safi. By mid-afternoon, El Sawy’s River Garden was packed with women’s rights’ supporters from all walks of life, from hip AUC students in expensive sunglasses to veiled middle class women with young children in tow. A number of booths distributed information, and people were invited to write messages of support on banners strung around the venue. “How should you respect women respectfully? asked one.
A number of speakers addressed the crowd, including Mohamed El Sawy, director of the Center, and Dr. Abier Al Barbary, an AUC psychology professor.
“Women’s initial reaction when they are harassed is ‘who saw that?’ They want to run away and hide from anyone who may have witnessed what happened to them, Al Barbary told the crowd. “Naturally women feel very self-conscious when they are screamed at or grabbed in the street. Never has a woman walked away from sexual harassment and thought it meant she looked sexy or good in her clothes.
According to Al Barbary, the cause of much street harassment is a feeling of frustration and hopelessness that many men feel in the face of poverty and an unfair social system.
“Many of the men doing these things in the street are either soldiers or they are under or unemployed, she said. “They have hours of access to the street and little control over their own lives. They are given rifles, titles and stripes on their shoulders. They are given signs of authority, but they don’t make a salary they can support their families on at the end of the month.
“When you feel that society has wronged you, you wrong it back, she added. “You pick on the weakest members of society and lash out at them. Unfortunately, this is how the ego is boosted. These are human dynamics at work.
