The Great Ladies: the women whose names history kept
The Great Ladies are the eleven figures named in the Forum de Femme film to show that, despite the rigor of dogma, women governed, built, taught and discovered: from Hatshepsut, woman and pharaoh of Egypt, to Malika El Fassi, the only woman to sign Morocco’s Manifesto of Independence, in 1944.
"How many famous women can you name? Ten? Twenty? And how many men?"
Sovereigns and builders
- Hatshepsut, woman and pharaoh of Egypt.
- Cleopatra, last queen of the Nile.
- Dihya, Amazigh queen of the Aurès.
- Isabella of Castile.
- Elizabeth I of England.
In Morocco and the Maghreb
- Zaynab an-Nafzawiyya, counselor to the Almoravids, as Marrakech was being born.
- Fatima al-Fihriya, who founded in Fez, in 859, al-Qarawiyyin, the oldest university in the world still in operation.
- Sayyida al-Hurra, governor of Tetouan.
- Malika El Fassi, the only woman to sign the Manifesto of Independence, on January 11, 1944.
- Princess Lalla Aïcha who, in Tangier, in 1947, spoke out for the education of girls.
Science
- Marie Curie, twice a Nobel Prize winner.
Those whose names no one kept
"Behind each of these great ladies, there are millions of women whose names no one remembers."
A note on the images
The evocations of Zaynab an-Nafzawiyya, Fatima al-Fihriya and Sayyida al-Hurra seen in the film are imaginary. The statue of Dihya in Khenchela, Algeria, is a modern work.