Sahar El-Bahr explores Fatakat, Egypt's first Internet forum for women only Serenity, Bleeding Heart, Dreaming Princess, Naughty Girl, The Loving Whispers, Queen of the Feelings and Lost Love are among nicknames used by the 180,000 female members of Fatakat, the first and largest of Egypt's Internet women's forums. Despite its odd name, Fatakat has been reported to be the second most-visited site in Egypt in 2009, followed by sites devoted to sport -- according to Ratteb, the first statistical site for Arabic websites. Attracting the site's 180,000 members are Fatakat's 256,500 topics related to women, and the site has clocked up some five million visits since it went online in July 2007. Today, Fatakat attracts some 150,000 hits daily. Fatakat's home page reads "if you feel lonely and are searching for good company, friends and a smile and are confused about where to go, you will find in Fatakat worldly and religiously perfect company." The site states that it is for women only and that men are strictly prohibited from joining. The idea of Fatakat came when the site's webmaster, Riri, together with her mother, sister and sister-in-law, discovered that there were apparently very few recipes on the Internet for typical Egyptian dishes like mulokhiya, koshari and beisara. "Our family are all very interested in cooking," Riri says, and her sister Um El-Tayib adds that the sisters' brother, a computer programmer, gave them the necessary technical support. "We started the forum by publishing more than 200 recipes, most of them invented by the women of the family," Um El-Tayib says. Unlike other women's forums on the Internet, which have feminine names like Eve, Butterfly, Pretty Woman or Cinderella, Riri decided to choose Fatakat for the name of the new forum, a word used for women several decades ago. The site aims to be for women "who have various experiences and knowledge that have enabled them to solve problems," Riri says. Following its establishment some years ago, the site's rapid development has made Riri very happy. "At first, we identified Fatakat as an Egyptian forum for cooking. However, we soon realised that thousands of the site's members were from other Arab countries, and therefore we decided to present the site as an Arab site and not only an Egyptian one," she recalls. Feedback from visitors to the site, many of whom had ideas of their own, encouraged Riri and her family to shift from only giving recipes to developing the site to make it more useful to every housewife, offering a range of information and ideas. Above all, for Riri the site is intended as an information platform for its members and a place where they can share stories and experiences, whether marital, financial, professional or parental. "Almost every member of the forum has advice to give or information to share," she says. "They teach each other foreign languages, recite the Quran and practise hobbies and handicrafts." Some members have sensitive problems that they would rather keep confidential. For such members, the site includes a section called the Confused Woman, where members are issued with a special username and password. Though all the members of the site have nicknames, many of them also know each other personally. Members of the site often develop strong social ties, leading them to share sad and happy moments. "Some of our members visited my mother when she was in hospital last week. There is a good spirit among members, and I sometimes feel that Fatakat is like one big family," The Reality, a 21-year-old member of the site says. Little Fatoka, another member, recounts the story of a mother who had written in her forum diary that her daughter had been treating her badly. "When this mother stopped writing her daily experiences for two days, hundreds of members were so worried about her that they wrote in asking for a link so that they could contact her directly," she says. The forum also holds periodical social gatherings for members who live in Cairo. Almost 250 members of the site have held meetings in Al-Azhar Park, where they taste each other's recipes and share ideas. Similar gatherings are held for Fatakat members in other governorates or abroad. "Annual parties are held and gifts distributed to the supervisors and administrators of the forum," Riri adds. The Good Wife is one of the site's supervisors. When asked why she chose this nickname, she said that it reflected her own wish to be a good wife and that she was trying hard to make the wish come true. "I have a lot of free time as I have only one child and my husband travels abroad for almost six months a year," The Good Wife says. "Over the past six years I have joined various female Internet forums," with Fatakat being her favourite. "Some Gulf-based forums specialise in trivial issues, such as beauty tips, whereas Egyptian women have other concerns," The Good Wife says. One such issue that has been raised on the Fatakat forum is the suffering of women who are ill treated by their husbands. According to Cat, the supervisor of a section called Dealing with Husbands, wives sometimes complain about their husbands' abusive behaviour, which can include serious issues such as physical abuse, verbal insults, smoking in front of the children, or even dating other women. According to Cat, one complaint raised by women in this section is that their husbands visit Internet sites containing pornographic materials. "We try to get as much information from our members as possible before we give them an advice," Cat says. Such advice can include tips on how an abused wife might deal with her husband, or how she could invest in her home, she says. Soso, another Fatakat supervisor, says that many members have significantly benefited from exchanging experience with others, and they have often said that their relationships have improved as a result. Sometimes, however, the husbands of Fatakat members have become jealous because their wives stay for hours in front of the computer. The site also launches campaigns to help deal with common problems facing members, such as inflation. Members have recently launched an information campaign called "a Scream in the Face of Inflation", in which they discuss financial problems together and try to find practical solutions. These could include advice from members who are financial consultants or economists. "Before I started the site, I had not realised that Egyptian women were so brilliant or so qualified," Riri says. Almost 80 supervisors are responsible for keeping an eye on the site's different sections, organising topics, or checking for repetitive or offensive material. Members can upload material from the Internet onto the Fatakat site, so long as they stick to the forum's ethical codes and give details of the material's sources. For Riri, the main aim of the site is to maintain a good spirit of friendship among members. "Some members can be narrow minded," she says, "or think that their views are the only correct ones. However, after they have been members for a while they became more flexible and realise that the world is very large and that there are thousands of views that should be respected and could be correct." One clash that has occurred has had to do with different views on the same legal rulings, or fatwas. "We have adopted a policy to give equal space to different fatwas, each member choosing the fatwa that suits her. We do not like criticisms of different points of view, since these can trigger clashes," she says. Riri is proud of the success she has achieved with Fatakat, which keeps on growing and attracting new members. Almost every month a new section or service is added, the last two being the Matchmaker, which helps women to find suitable husbands, and the Mall, in which members can buy or sell new or secondhand goods. "We are now planning a new service giving private lessons to pupils no longer able to go to school because of swine flu," she adds. Fatakat does not receive any funding aside from space booked by Google that allows it to pay for a server. However, it would like to raise funds to publish members' recipes in book form. Fatakat encourages its members to be creative and to try out innovative ideas at home. "In the past, women only had the famous cookery book of Miss Nazira to turn to. Today, however, cookery has greatly developed," Riri says.
