Discourse surrounding state policy on gender, formerly the purview of elite groups, has been shaped and driven by popular organizations and associations in the aftermath of the Arab Uprisings in Tunisia. This article draws on Habermas to argue that the shift has been facilitated by the emergence of a new public sphere and engaged civil society following the fall of the Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime in 2011. To capture women’s voices in the emerging civil society, we focus on the promulgation of a new constitution and the debate surrounding Article 28, which has been contested by some Tunisians as reducing women’s status to ‘complementary’. A brief consideration of women’s status in the history of Tunisian family law, especially in the popularly valorized Code of Personal Status, illustrates how women’s rights were historically expanded as a top-down policy or ‘politics from above’. We juxtapose this historical context with the present period of transition and constitution writing following the 2011 uprisings. An examination of statements from Tunisian women, both opponents and supporters of Article 28, demonstrates the shift in Tunisia from a ‘politics from above’ to a ‘politics from below’ as women’s groups made demands upon the state and expressed their concerns in ways that have profoundly influenced the tenor of debates around gender politics in the country.