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Moroccan Feminisms and the Urban/Rural Divide
Abstract
This paper aims to look at the new context of gender politics in Morocco post-Arab uprising and post–gender-based reforms. This new context reveals an interesting reconfiguration of the terms of the debate —and its players—around what constitutes and frames the “women question” in Morocco. Representations of the “women question”—as advocacy for and/or opposition to gender equality, as women’s rights versus the Islamist agenda, or as modern versus traditional values— have been challenged by the eruption of bottom-up, female-led street protests in rural areas and in the suburbs of urban centers. These eruptions are redefining the conversation about women, exposing power relations within feminism and its discursive framework of rights and laying bare the gap that I have just mentioned, between the inequalities that are ostensibly being addressed through activism led by long-standing NGOs, and the system that continues to reproduce those inequalities. In each case, the changes that are emerging operate within leaders’ specific local socioeconomic situations, and the political issues at play are largely structured by the intersection of socioeconomic inequalities and political authoritarianism.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Morocco
Sub Area
7th-13th Centuries