The Women and Memory Forum (WMF) organized a storytelling evening on 8 February 2000 at the Oriental Hall of the American University in Cairo (AUC). The WMF storytelling evenings mark the culmination of the extensive effort of the WMF’s working group Qalat al-Rawiya.

Qalat al-Rawiya conducted a series of workshops with the aim of exploring folklore and Arab culture to produce texts that advocate justice for women. The WMF working group recognizes the critical role of popular culture in shaping societal awareness and orientations towards specific issues or groups, particularly women. As a result, Qalat al-Rawiya uses the narrative format as a means to present stories that give women a voice and a role in life. The working group succeeded in developing new versions of the Egyptian folk tales, the popular lyrical narratives, and the tales from One Thousand and One Nights. The goal is to produce cultural material that offers new alternatives that liberate both women and men from rigid stereotypes imposed upon them. The perpetuation of these stereotypes solidifies their integration into the society’s fabric and structures.

The Women and Memory Forum diversifies the methods via which it disseminates this cultural material, including publications such as the feminist stories series Qalat al-Rawiya featuring a selection of these rewritten narratives, as well as public readings presented at community gatherings and schools. Additionally, the WMF organizes storytelling evenings in various locations. For the WMF, storytelling holds a significance value as an art form with social and historical ties to women. Through storytelling, women transmit knowledge and social values across generations. The WMF views storytelling as a means to convey the women’s perspective beyond the boundaries of the written text, and towards broader horizons.

We hope that our stories will put forward positive and more realistic portrayals of women, striving to break free from pervasive and erroneous stereotypes of women.