Khawal

Postcard of a khawal dressed in dancing costume (pre–1907).

The khawal (plural khawalat) was a traditional native Egyptian male dancer cross-dressed in feminine attire and was popular up until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

As they impersonate women, their dances are exactly of the same description as those of the Ghawazee [female dancers] ... Their general appearance ... is more feminine than masculine: they suffer the hair of the head to grow long, and generally braid it, in the manner of women ... they imitate the women also in applying kohl and henna to their eyes and hands like women. In the streets, when not engaged in dancing, they often veil their faces; not from shame, but merely to affect the manners of women.[1]

In response to the prohibition of women dancing in public, cross-dressing males took their place. The khawal were effeminate male transvestite dancers in Egypt that emulated the female ghawazi by dancing with castanet self accompaniment, their hands painted with henna, long hair dressed in braids, plucking facial hair, wearing make-up, and adopting the manners of women. They would distinguish themselves from real females by wearing a costume that was part male and part female.[2] The khawal performed at various functions such as weddings,[3] births, circumcisions, and festivals.[4] They also performed for foreign visitors in the nineteenth century sometimes causing confusion among the spectators.[5] The khawal were perceived as sexually available; their male audiences found their ambiguity seductive.[6]

In modern Egyptian slang, the term is derogatory and refers to a passive gay mam.[7]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Joseph A. Boone (2014). The Homoerotics of Orientalism. Columbia University Press. p. 188. ISBN 9780231521826.
  2. ↑ Judith Lynne Hanna (1988). Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire. University of Chicago Press. pp. 57–58. ISBN 9780226315515.
  3. ↑ Edward William Lane (1842). An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. 1. London: Charles Knight & Co. p. 260.
  4. ↑ edited by Mona L. Russell Ph.D., ed. (2013). Middle East in Focus: Egypt. ABC-CLIO. p. 335. ISBN 9781598842340.
  5. ↑ Karin van Nieuwkerk (2010). A Trade like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. University of Texas Press. p. 33. ISBN 9780292786806.
  6. ↑ Anthony Shay (2014). The Dangerous Lives of Public Performers: Dancing, Sex, and Entertainment in the Islamic World. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 160. ISBN 9781137432384.
  7. ↑ Human Rights Watch (2004). In a Time of Torture: The Assault on Justice in Egypt's Crackdown on Homosexual Conduct. p. 6. ISBN 1564322963.
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