CAIRO: Since liberalization reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, Egypt has registered a remarkable economic growth rate. According to data compiled by the British economist Angus Maddison, Egypt’s GDP grew by 61 percent between 1990 and 2006.
Since 1950 the GDP per capita has increased by 370 percent despite the significant growth of population that accompanied it.
However, domestic and foreign analysts often point to widespread poverty and stagnation among the majority of the population. The growing economic and lifestyle gap between rich and poor has become the representative image of this trend.
What remains hidden to the eye of an observer passing by rural areas or Cairo’s shantytowns is the story of the people who live there – often presented in media and research in percentages and numbers. The female voice in such communities, especially, tends to be forgotten or ignored.
To correct this information gap and to give a platform of expression to women, Pathways for Women’s Empowerment has launched the 3G Project, a multimedia portrayal of generational change among women in Egypt. Working with a collective of professional photographers called Documentography, PWE has recorded the stories of Egyptian women of all walks of life.
The project consists of photo and video portraits of women representing three different generations of one family. Women talk about diverse aspects of their lives: childhood, teenage, marriage, education, etc. Following the lives of a grandmother, a mother and a daughter gives a unique perspective on the socioeconomic and cultural changes that have taken place over the past few decades in women’s lives.
“Now women are more comfortable, says Ihsan, a grandmother-interviewee from the village of Khabta in the Nile Delta. “They wear nice clothes and they eat better food. Life has changed a lot. It is not the same as it was 50, 60 or 70 years ago, she adds.
“Of course, women have many more rights [now] than before. They have financial rights and legal rights in marriage, says Hanem, her granddaughter.
Hanem has a high school diploma in commerce, but her mother, Fathya, never went to school. “I regretted not studying when I got older after seeing other people who studied. We were not able to afford education, she says. All three generations of women in this family point out that all their lives they have stood beside their husbands in the family’s struggle for economic survival, whether in the fields or in the neighborhood market. While in rural areas women’s contribution to the family’s income was inevitable, the urban middle class saw a different fate. “When I compare the way my mother lived about 50 years ago and the way of life of my daughter today, I am really astonished by the differences, says Galal Amin in his book “Whatever Happened to the Egyptians published in 2000.
He describes how his mother spent most of her life in the kitchen; his sister enjoyed more financial independence but remained at home; and his daughter opted for a full time job while studying for a higher educational degree. “A woman’s essential functions have been. radically changed, Amin concludes.
The ultimate goal of both Amin’s book and the 3G Project is to address the stereotypes about the presence or absence of change in people’s lives, those which statistics cannot reveal.
Researchers involved in the 3G Project were surprised by some of the results. Women were asked to choose an object of great importance in their lives to be photographed. Despite researchers’ expectations to see a lot of Qurans chosen, none of the women did so. “Often in rural settings or poor settings women were choosing radios. It is [their] window to the outside world, says photographer Gui Alandry from Documentography.
Other favorite objects were wedding photos; which represented key moment in these women’s lives. That moment has also changed over the generations. “My marriage celebration was different from my mother’s, says Hanem. “When my mother married, there was no white wedding dress but I [wore] one. My mother did not have a wedding party but I had one.
Wedding dresses and radios might seem mundane, but they demonstrate significant changes brought about by the advent of communication technology and cheaper consumer goods.
The output of this project will be an interactive website which will allow visitors to compare the stories of the three generations of women on the background of video illustrations of their lifestyles and surroundings. As the project expands to other countries, cross-country comparison will also be available. The website’s is due to be launched in March.
Another photo project which Pathways for Women’s Empowerment is involved in is Changing Focus Photography Competition. The project aims at encouraging Egyptian photographers to challenge the traditional representations of women in their communities. The winner will be awarded LE 5,000 to carry out a photography project on women. The deadline for submissions is Feb. 15.
