News Center - Women are an important part of Egypt's art history that extends along with the civilization of the Nile Valley, and women have invaded various fields of art in writing and acting despite social rejection. In 1927 a woman produced the first movie in the country.

History of the arts in Egypt

The Egyptian civilization is full of paintings and statues depicting men and women and the various details of life at that time, and there is no indication that art was the preserve of men or women contributed to it, the paintings and statues depicted both women and men, and the number of paintings in which women appeared was approximately the number of paintings in which men appeared.

Playing and singing were known before the history of the dynasties. Music had gods, called "God Osiris", and it has a band of women and men, musicians, and God Manyer was considered to be the inventor and protector of the music.

The great predominance of women used to make sing in temples and use the existing musical instruments, including the fugitive, the flute, the oboe, and others.  Women singers performed during celebrations such as the celebration of the birth of God, harvest seasons, and funerals. Ham-Ragh was one of the singers and she was the head of the singers and royal bridesmaids.

Singing was associated with dance, and dance was not a source of contempt but rather a respectable art, religious ritual, and a cornerstone of weddings and feasts, the ancient Egyptians sang songs and danced in public and private parties, and a group of professional dancers formed around the villages and cities performed their dances in front of the public.

Inscriptions on the walls of tombs and temples documented movements of expressive dances, and also depicted three women participating in the celebrations of the god Hathor on the walls of the Amenemhath tomb in Thebes on the west bank of the Nile.

Music was also associated with the theater, as it presented legends such as the legend of the universe, the coronation, and the play of Horus, the most popular at the time, formed the legend of the paints that talked about Iasi's legend.  

But with the entry of Christianity into the country, a lot of arts, including the theater collapsed to link it to paganism, and this continued even after the entry of Muslims into the Arab world.

 Modern arts

 Egyptian female artists have starred in the cinema sector since its opening in the country, and the names of many of them are still rooted in the minds of present and future generations. In literature and poetry, there are bright names that challenge patriarchal society and its traditions.

Numerous women names have emerged since the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, and they made their mark in the fields of literature and poetry such as Aisha Al-Taymooriya, Abkar Al-saqaf, and Alifa Refaat .

The poet and novelist Aisha Al-Taymooriya (1840-1902) wrote poetry in several languages, including Arabic, Turkish, and Persian, she had two books in Turkish and Persian, published in 1894, and a book in Arabic entitled "Haliyat Al- Teraz", in addition, a book entitled "Alleka Baad Al-Shetaa", her poet took a religious turn, she presented the prophetic praise and the divine supplications, she explicitly endorsed the hijab in one of her poems. She was an important Arab and Egyptian poet.

The poet Abkar al-Saqaf (1913-1989) challenged reality and posed questions about existence and life, so she was fought by the Egyptian authorities. In 1962 AD, the authorities took her book “Mausoaa Nahwa Afaq Awsaa".

The novelist and storyteller Alifa Refaat (1930-1996) included the issues of Egyptian women, especially rural women. In her books, she criticized the male domination of women and their deprivation of freedom, and separation between the genders. She wrote about topics sensitive to society such as lesbianism and marital rape.

In Egypt, there are many names of women who have excelled in the field of literature from different generations such as Latifa Al-Zayat, who paid great attention to women's issues, and Aya Yasser, Amina Zidan, Suhair Al-Qalamawi, Sherine Hani, Azza Lotfi, and Nawal Al-Saadawi, who advocate for women's issues.

Women break traditions in theater and establish the film industry

In theater, Mounira Al-Mahdia made her the first woman to achieve this achievement and she discovered the famous musician Muhammad Abdu lwahab, who had one film titled "Ghandoura” released in 1935.

In general, women were not active in the theater, whether through writing "authorship" or directing and at the beginning, performing in the theater plays was shameful for women. But Egyptian women stormed the theater and many names emerged and gained great fame at the time, such as Dawlet Abiad, Aziza Amir, Fatima Rushdie, and others, who performed both in theater plays and movies.

 Egypt is an Arab country producing the most films with a long history in this field. In 1896, the cinema opened and the first film was shown, but the Egyptian film sector did not start until 1917.

Asia Dagher (1901-1986), who was illiteracy, did not even have a source of funding, she established the Lotus Film Production and Distribution Company, and she was called the Dean of Producers and the mother of Egyptian cinema, and produced historical films such as "Shajarat Al-Dur" in 1935 and "Amir Al-Entiqam" in 1950, and her company produced the film Nasser Saladin in 1963.

The cinema managed by the male mindset relied heavily on the stereotypes against women.

Women were portrayed in two different images, either evil or fairly, all stories were about relationships and love.

The male mindset governed the cinema sector and improperly depicted women who revolted against society and traditions and portrayed them as a cause of family and possibly society destruction.

After the revolution of the Free Officers in 1952 and having a government, with more open authority on women's issues, the traditional view toward women began to change, so the movie “Austatha Fatima” in 1952 was a qualitative shift in the artistic discourse of women's issues as presented the issue of equality gender as a necessity in society.

In every political system, women were a tool for passing the ideology of the ruling authority.

Egyptian women such Umm Kulthum, Fatten Hamama, Sharifa Fadel, Shadia, and Nadia Lutfi are very known women, and the Arabs are still listening to the songs of that era and watching their films with the same passion.

 In recent years, the films shed light on issues affecting women, including revealing virginity and delaying marriage in the movie "Bentin Min Masser" starring Zeina and Saba Mubarak, but a large segment of Egyptians did not accept the film and considered it offensive to Egyptian women.

In 2013, the National Council for Women condemned the presentation of a series of films that considered being descending and morally inferior, and said that "These types of films lead to an increase and worsening rates of sexual harassment in the Egyptian streets" and they called on the authorities of the film industry to take serious steps towards such type films

Also, a "Khud Balak" campaign was launched on Twitter to boycott these films.

Women in scientific fields

The lack of interest in scientific research in the Arab world in general and in Egypt particularly has affected women, so the number of women who entered the scientific field is very few, but they are important compared to the scientific situation in the country.

Some of the names of important women are; Samira Musa (1917-1952), the first Egyptian atom scientist, and Inventor Rana Al-Qalioubi, through Effective Technologies created an invention that makes computers recognize the human feeling, she is currently working as the CEO of the company, and one of the most prominent businesswomen in the Middle East, geologist Imane Ghoneim discovered a large ancient lake buried under the sands of the big desert in North Darfur, Sudan, in 2007.

Tomorrow: Egyptian feminist movement