Facing Challenges and Pioneering Feminist and Gender Studies:
[Article]
Women in Post-colonial and Todays Maghrib
Fatima Sadiqi
Leiden
Brill
Starting from the premise that the nature and impact of women's agency can be understood only within specific historical and socio-cultural environments (Sadiqi, 2003), the major aim of this paper is to highlight the multi-faceted agency of women in post-colonial and today's Maghrib. The Maghrib is a North African region that includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, but I chose to focus on the first three countries given their common historical and socio-cultural background. Not only have women in this region faced challenges, but they have also pioneered feminist and gender studies and raised new issues for these disciplines in the global South as well as the North. Four major interrelated domains where these achievements are significant are considered: women's reproductive rights, women's movements, women's legal rights, and women's knowledge production. Issues related to these domains are analyzed from a broad comparative perspective which involves an overall political and economic contextualization. The paper reveals the positive role that Maghribi women have been playing in the overall development of their countries and the main outcomes show that the future of the Maghrib is significantly linked to the fate of these gains. Starting from the premise that the nature and impact of women's agency can be understood only within specific historical and socio-cultural environments (Sadiqi, 2003), the major aim of this paper is to highlight the multi-faceted agency of women in post-colonial and today's Maghrib. The Maghrib is a North African region that includes Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania, but I chose to focus on the first three countries given their common historical and socio-cultural background. Not only have women in this region faced challenges, but they have also pioneered feminist and gender studies and raised new issues for these disciplines in the global South as well as the North. Four major interrelated domains where these achievements are significant are considered: women's reproductive rights, women's movements, women's legal rights, and women's knowledge production. Issues related to these domains are analyzed from a broad comparative perspective which involves an overall political and economic contextualization. The paper reveals the positive role that Maghribi women have been playing in the overall development of their countries and the main outcomes show that the future of the Maghrib is significantly linked to the fate of these gains.