Gender Equality in the Arts

Museum of Modern Egyptian Art: The museum is right next to the Opera House in Zamalek. In 1869, Khedive Ismail gave instructions to build an opera house to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, and help put Egypt on a par culturally with Western nations. This Opera House in the center of Cairo opened with Rigoletto; one of Verdi's earlier masterpieces. Contrary to general belief, Aida was neither commissioned for the inauguration of the Opera House nor for the Suez Canal. Aida was first performed in 1871.Tragically, in the early morning of October 28th 1971, the great Royal Opera House was completely destroyed by a fire. The new opera house was inaugurated on October 1988.

Abdel Wahab: Outside the Opera House, among numerous sculptures, is a large statue of one of Egypt's greatest 20th century singers and composers, Muhammad Abdel Wahab. Abdel Wahab composed many songs and musical pieces of classical Arab music, yet he was criticized for his orientation to Western music. The most loved Egyptian singer, songwriter, and actress though is Um Kulthum. She is known as the Star of the East (Kawkab al-Sharq): and more than three decades after her death, she is widely regarded as the greatest female singer in Arabic music history. A monument to her in a Zamalek intersection is located on the site of her former house. Around 1965, Umm Kulthum started cooperating with composer Muhammad Abdel Wahab. Umm Kulthum's music has been likened to the blues in the way she blended together Quranic recitation, classical love poems, and folk songs.

Portrayal of Women: Many works of the most famous Egyptian artists are displayed on the ground floor. They mainly represent the way of life in Egypt, although others are whimsical; and some are not even titled and exceptionally abstract. One important theme of the art work concerns women–how they view their hopes, dreams and problems, and how men view certain manners in women. Some are classic, such as Men and Women by Mahmoud Afifi (see picture), depicting a man and woman, clearly in love, within a garden setting. It provides one with a sense of the natural idea and course of love between men and women. There is also Motherhood, a portrait by Ingy Aflaton. Another topic relating to women concerns safety and the security that women seek out (Shafig Shaborream). In another painting by Mohamed Hussan entitled Immaculate Suzanne, a young girl attempts to flee two men who are grabbing her in a robe.In Turkish Bath, Marguerite Nakhla provides a view of a very private place at a certain period of time in Egypt's history–when public baths were prominent segregated for use by men or women. Only a woman artist could provide an interpretation of this particular experience.

Zainab Abdel Hamid: Photo is of Abdel Hamid's (1919-2002) Mediterranean Summer Resort (1984). She had been exhibiting her work since 1949 as a leading woman artist working in oil and watercolor. Her career included a professorship at the Academy of Arts in Helwan. Today's art has changed from a focus on only painting and sculpture. At Al Azhar Park, for example, conceptual artist Mariam Fareid Adly has walked around wearing bubble wrap. The plastic wrap evokes modern packaging, Egyptian mummies, and the conformity of religious veiling.

Gazbia Serry: Picture by Serry, Untitled, one of Egypt's most famous female artists. Born in 1925 in Cairo and educated at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Zamalek with further study in Italy and Britain, Serry became a professor at the Faculty of Art Education at Helwan University. Her career is characterized by great versatility. It would be difficult to place Gazbia in any traditional school, although her vivid and bold brushstrokes share features with Neo-Expressionism: a school of individuality and personality. Serry’s art is distinguished for its capacity of thematic renewal. Whereas she began by expressing the feelings and traditions of Egyptian women during the 1960s, in the '70s, she used pyramid images and mixed-media in her depictions of their daily life . In the 1990s, she continued to liberate Egyptian woman from old traditions through her interpretations. As an aside, in Egypt, the colloquial term for gooseberries is "sitt mistaghrabiyya," or "the covered lady." They are sold from pushcarts all over Cairo for a few weeks in early spring.

Return to Cairo Marriott: I wanted to take some more pictures at the Cairo Mariott, the central section of which was once the Gezirah Palace built for the Khedive Isma'il Pasha in 1869. This fountain I loved. When the water is flowing, it fills the basins and drops exactly into the open mouths of fishes balancing on their tails. The bar/lounge has enormous murals detailing the festivities provided by Isma'il for the opening of the Suez Canal. The original Gezirah Palace was constructed by the Nile on orders from Khedive Isma'il. He asked the architects of the time to make it resemble the palace of Versailles, where Empress Eugénie used to stay. The Gezirah Palace was built to host the French Empress Eugénie, who was invited along with her husband,Emperor Napoleon III, to witness the opening of the Suez Canal. You can see the empress in some of the murals.

Back to Those Awful Days: Farid Zakaria has said: So, what you're dealing with is a certain degree of extremism in these societies and weak governance. That's different from a kind of grand revolution. The Arab world is not descending into "chaos." What you have here is one of these periodic crises that take place. They're all signs of a fundamental problem within Arab societies, a fundamental lack of tolerance and an extremism. About a few hundred people, here and there, in the Middle East have taken to protest.

So, there's is a certain degree of extremism and weak governance in many of these countries, explains Zakaria. That's different from a kind of grand revolution. As for President Obama needing to apologize, "it's absurd. It's ludicrous." Zakaria thinks whats needed is a proper apology from Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, who is the one figure in all of this that has been most disappointing. "The Egyptian government has not provided the protection the United States needs. It has not reacted to the violence in the way that it should, let alone the fact that Egypt gets a lot of aid from the United States [$2 billion a year]."

What the U.S. doesn't understand about Muslims, says Zakaria, is that this does affect a kind of core sense of their dignity; and it affects their sense of whether or not we respect them. Still, "at the end of the day, the West is in the right here. The United States is in the right. It is entirely inappropriate under any circumstances to use violence as a response to freedom of speech. The way you counter bad speech is with good speech." See Farid Zakaria GPS, 9/14/2012. As D. Kirkpatrick points out, "In fact, denying the Holocaust is also protected as free speech in the United States, although it is prohibited in Germany and a few other European countries." "Mohamed Sabry, 29, a sculptor and art teacher at a downtown cafe, said he saw a darker picture. 'To see the Islamic world in this condition of underdevelopment,' he said, 'this is a bigger insult to the prophet.'" From Kirkpatrick, "Cultural Clash Fuels Muslims Raging at Film", NYT, 9/17/2012.