Thursday, March 31, 2011

Marie-Joe Rahme on women

This is a rather old campaign that Marie-Joe Rahme (who is a student at USEK) did for one of her projects centered around the erradication of violkence against women in the Arab world. It was adopted by KAFA and was postedon their facebook page even if frankly it deserved much more attention that that.
Marie-Joe plays on the Arabic grammar by using the word "damir" (which doubles as "pronoun" and "consicence") the word "fe3el" (which also means "subject" and "active"). So the whole sentence reads as "She: a free-thinking conscience, active in society, whose appreciation is a must"... Beats everything else I see in the market!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, I'd like to say I appreciate your posts and how you dissect the ads, for better or worse...

But there is a better translation to the last bit ('Wajeb' better translates to Duty or responsability, rather than just a must), must sounds too imperative.

I agree that appreciating a woman for what she represents is a natural duty that should be innate in anyone. But using "must" in English rather than Duty comes across as pushy, and it doesn't come across as that in Arabic, it sounds more elegant.

i would choose "Valuing a woman is a duty" instead... but that's just me

Ronman

Danielle said...

IF you say it's good, it must be good.