MIDDLE EAST EYE (5/11/2020)
Surrounded by books on feminism and portraits of women’s rights activists, Maria Elayan, the star of a new web-video series, holds up an illustration of human evolution to the camera, where Beyoncé represents the most evolved form of the homo sapiens.
“There is not even one image that shows the evolution of humans starting from a female. So I decided to make my own,” she explains in the video that has been watched over 1 million times on Facebook.
Outspoken and unapologetic, the character Elayan is playing, also named Maria, is here to show that she is one of a growing number of women representing their own image and forging their own paths.
“I know you won’t believe it but they found out women have been on earth the same amount of time as men have. So why do most men act as if this planet is theirs and women are here as guests?” she asks in the first episode, The Value of Women, with her trademark sarcastic smile. “Why?”
This question is the first of many posed by Elayan, a Palestinian-Jordanian actress and content creator. Her on-screen namesake is there to debunk gender stereotypes and expose the patriarchy in a series of 10 episodes called Smi’touha Minni (meaning “you heard it from me” in Arabic).
The series is published by a new feminist initiative founded in March called Khateera (the name in Arabic being the feminine derivative of the word “dangerous”), and presents itself as a platform for every woman who “takes her place in this world without asking for permission” (…)
Read More: https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/khateera-empowering-women-web-videos-middle-east