Sister, Oh Sister - A series by Najla Said

“I wanted to free myself and all my sisters from allowing our gender to be constantly politicised” - Najla Said

“Never too many” - Image by Najla Said

Words by Najla Said

Our bodies are governed, our opinions are governed, our language is governed, our thoughts are governed, our decisions are governed, our gender is governed. Being a woman in Cairo is to be in constant revolt. Sometimes I don’t want to be anything at all, but Cairo, the city I was raised in, requires me to fight again, and again, until I have no more blood to shed. Beyond the household lectures, the public space seems to be an open invitation for all strangers to ‘raise’ me over and over again, and yes, on a daily basis, as if I were a creature needing to be tamed. The moment I step outside of my house, I gather gazes and comments about my appearance. It’s been over a year since I cut my hair, and I didn’t even think I would need to clarify that, but in this context I do. Random people have stopped their cars just to open their window and ask me if I was a man or woman, some people get angry and start shouting at me for “looking like a guy”, and I even struggled to get my national ID renewed because they had no proof that I was the same person, and that I’m still that same woman. After all these strange situations, it hit me that hair (including body hair) has become this character, it has taken on this vital role exceeding its biological purpose, and it’s becoming an essential component of so-called ‘femininity’ in our culture. A woman who doesn’t shave or wax is unclean, one who is veiled is a pure woman, one who has long hair is ‘girly’ and in my case, short hair means I’m a guy. Hair is being fetishised, and it’s belittling to even think that it contributes to the essence of womanhood. My anger became the seed for “There was no answer” in my series ‘Sister, Oh Sister’ - a project I developed during the first lockdown. The series re-contextualises extracted elements within the Egyptian vernacular culture, in order to create alternative representations of womanhood. Its satirical title, targeting the paternalist representation of women solely viewed as an extension of a man, aims to challenge the stereotypical and oppressive portrait of Arab women. With each image, I gather scenes from our visual culture in Cairo, and by placing them in a different environment, I hope that they will trigger a feeling, and invite the viewer to question what they believe is ‘feminine’. 

“And they crashed the party” - Image by Najla Said

The first image I shot, ‘and they crashed the party’ gives an introduction to the orientalist representation of Arab women. Since colonial history, bellydancers have been fetishised and deemed as ‘exotic’. In today’s society, they are linked to prostitution and suffer censorship constantly, thus the obscure ambience of the image. It contrasts with the rest of the series, which invites an authentic part of our reality in Cairo. ‘Never too many’ is inspired by the too-familiar scene of an entire family on a motorcycle, but instead portrays four women tightly holding each other, and for me it’s an ode to sisterhood. An empowering safe space for one to exist as a woman, where there is no judgement, and only celebration. The last image of the series ‘Pray for me 666 times’ incorporates the “digital tally counter”, which is basically the alternative to using prayer beads. It’s quite common these days to see people having one on their finger and counting their prayers. The idea was to liberate the identity of the woman who uses this counter, and imagine a representation where both coexist: religiosity and hyper femininity, with a hint of bad bitch energy. 

I wanted to free myself and all my sisters from allowing our gender to be constantly politicised. I don’t want to fight, I just want a space where I can be me without fitting in these dictatorial patriarchal norms. I want an untainted space for us, where we can be unshielded, unprotected and yet unafraid. ‘Sister, Oh Sister’ intends to provoke the categories Arab women have been limited to painfully squeeze in, and create a decolonized space for self-representation, self-definition and self-validation.

If you want to see more from Najla you can follow her work here.

Photography, concept, and production by Najla Said

Special thanks to: Mena Assad, Ahmed Nader and Nike Dieterich

“Never too many”

Models (left to right): Taya Attia, Nadeen Fekky, Zahraa El Alfy, Aisha Azab

“And they crashed the party”

Model: Yasmina Leyla

Makeup: Habiba Kasrawy

“Pray for me 666 times”

Models: Taya Attia, Emmanuel Demian

“There was no answer”

Model: Habiba Haddara

Costume: Shak