This paper analyzes the evolution of popular portrayals of a major femicide known as “Raya and Sakina” as a product of the coloniality of gender in Egypt. The femicide took place in the clandestine brothels of two women named Raya and Sakina who had migrated to the port city of Alexandria from Southern Egypt in the World War I era. Although the legal records suggest that the femicide was perpetrated by a network of men, Raya and Sakina became scapegoats for the murders in the Egyptian media and were subsequently executed by the state. The discussion of the case in the media in the wake of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 turned into a debate over the root cause of Egypt’s social problems, which nationalists attributed to the effects of colonial rule on gender and sexuality. Since then, numerous Egyptian films, television shows and plays have been produced about the femicide, all of them presenting Raya and Sakina’s ‘barbarity’ as the sole cause of the murders. Through an analysis of these media productions, I explore both changes and continuities in depictions of Raya and Sakina over the past century and what they reveal about the coloniality of gender in Egypt. I show that while the gendered and racialized portrayal of Raya and Sakina as ‘barbaric’ women has remained consistent over time, the story of the femicide has been continually reconfigured in Egyptian popular culture. The most popular reconfigurations mark pivotal moments in Egyptian history, including the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, the infitah, and the resurgence of the labor movement in the late Mubarak era. The Raya and Sakina story thus continues to serve as a platform to debate the root cause of Egypt’s social problems in the wake of major political and economic change. I argue that these reconfigurations highlight the centrality of gender to Egyptian conceptions of the political and economic order. At the same time, the attribution of social problems to ‘barbaric’ women is a product of the coloniality of gender and an attempt to silence serious discussions of gender violence in Egypt.