The work of women artists like Safia Farhat, the only woman in the artists’ group l’Ecole de Tunis, testifies to the rupture with colonial art that began during the 1940s and that became the central orientation of art training in the Arab world since independence. This paper will show how the Arab spring has seen an explosion of radically new artistic expression, where women artists in Tunisia, during the period 2011-2013 and using forms such as documentary film, installations, cartoons, posters, and photographs, produce a new socio-critical discourse in the context of a “democratic transition.” While extending the work undertaken by pioneering women artists, contemporary creators like Nadia Jelassi, Aicha Filali, Nadia El Fani, Sonia Chamekh, and others in Tunisia, denounce both Salafi discourse and state feminism. This paper will focus on the work of several women artists to show the evolution from expressing marginal or oppositional views to political positions central to debates over the transition, as well as on the controversy and discussion that these have engendered, all of which has contributed to enriching public debate over freedom of conscience and expression in the region.

How does political and economic liberalization impact working-class women? Based on author interviews with political activists and leaders, this study employs cross-historical analysis to assess how wielders of power in Morocco, namely the palace and its allies, have shaped the discourse on such reforms in Morocco. Examining the impact of neoliberal economic policies and measures of political liberalization on class- and gender-based inequalities, this paper will examine the plight of politically active working-class women in Morocco. Since Mohammed VI’s accession to the throne, women’s rights have consistently been framed within a discourse on political and economic liberalization. Pointing to various measures, such as the personal status code law reforms, the dominant political narrative describes Morocco as a "progressive" country with regard to the treatment of women. Decades of political reforms and neoliberal economic policies initiated under King Hassan II and deepened under the rule of Mohammed VI have had important consequences for the Moroccan working class, especially women. Within the past two years, working-class women have been at the forefront of social mobilization, participating in street politics and publicly expressing dissent, most notably with the self-immolation of single mother Fadoua Laroui and the suicide of Amina Filali, a young rape victim forced into a marriage with her rapist. Looking back on years of neoliberal economic policies, as well as the political liberalization measures King Mohammed VI instituted, working-class women in Morocco remain marginalized. This paper builds upon literature on the political economy of gender relations, state feminism, and incorporates interviews conducted with Moroccan women activists that addresses their involvement with the February 20 Movement, which emerged in the wake of the Arab Uprisings, the obstacles they have faced, and the ways in which they identify themselves. The findings of this paper contribute to our broader theoretical understanding of the relationship between economic and political liberalization and women’s rights. Specifically, by underscoring the negative impact of liberalization on working class women, the paper attenuates dominant theoretical perspectives that view political and economic liberalization as primary vehicles for women’s empowerment in the Arab World.

This presentation discusses anti-sexual harassment initiatives launched in North Africa within the broader context of the Arab Spring. Although women's rights groups have mobilised against gender-based violence for the past few decades, recent initiatives signal interesting shifts in how the young generation of women and men behind these initiatives conceptualise the linkages between sexual harassment, citizenship and the gendering of democracy. I use the Egyptian Harassmap and the Moroccan Women-Shoufouch as examples of how young activists combine on-the-ground mobilisation with cyber activism that maximises the potential of new communication technologies (Internet and cell phone) and social networks (Facebook, Twitter and YouTube). I argue that it is through this combination of online and offline activism that they have succeeded in exposing the complicity of political and patriarchal forces in (re)producing and condoning sexual harassment before and since the Arab Spring. Drawing on various sources, including interviews with young activists, I underscore interesting generational shifts in how young activists think of, talk about and react to sexual harassment within societies where the topic has long been condemned to silence. Recent efforts, I contend, promise to launch an irreversible process of change.

The Revolution Shall Not Pass Through Women’s Bodies: Egypt, Uprising and Gender Politics Abstract This paper analyzes the outcome of the Egyptian uprising on gender issues by focusing on women’s bodies and the ways by which they constitute and are constituted by Islamism, militarism, protest and sexuality in the context of the revolution. While these “feminine” bodies are disciplined and regulated through these discourses, they are also sites of dissent and revolution. I begin by exploring three vignettes. The first describes the legal case of Samira Ibrahim against the military apparatus’s virginity tests; the second explores the circumstances surrounding the brutal attack on a female protestor dubbed ‘the girl in the blue bra’ by the media, and then finally the last vignette centers on Aliaa Al Mahdy’s ‘nude activism.’ These three cases illustrate the centrality of female corporeality in the political transformations taking place post the so-called “Arab Spring.” A female protestor in Tahrir held a sign with the following slogan: ‘The Revolution will not pass through the bodies of women. The Revolution will pass with the bodies of women. No to sexual terrorism.’ In just a few words this protestor captured the gender politics of an entire revolution. Seeing women’s bodies as a means to their political ends, Islamists, liberals and pro government groups—to name a few groups, viewed the female body as transgressive, unregulated and unruly. Despite these hegemonic representations, the narratives of gendered corporeality persist in articulating a counter discourse that perhaps will succeed in imagining the female body differently in public spaces. These bodies as shown in the vignettes this paper will discuss offer novel forms of corporeal practices that as they appropriate systemic forms of discipline and regulation also reconstitute them into new and personal ways of expressing counter discursive means of resistance.

Two years after the explosion of revolutions that rocked the Arab world from Tunisia to Yemen, writers have begun to publish their assessments of women’s gains and losses. The initial welcome and respect that sisters-in-combat enjoyed have in many cases given way to harassment and violence. Is this backlash typical of post-war retrenchment of women’s rights or is something different happening? To answer this question I will refer to women’s journalistic and creative writings. I will consider edited volumes with many women’s voices, for example, Fleeting Words: Anthology of Revolution (2102) that includes a wide variety of mostly creative writings from Tunisia and Writing Resistance: the Voices from Tunis to Damascus (2013) that collects testimonials from eight countries that address the ongoing resistance. I will also analyze a few women’s short stories and longer single-authored works from several countries to see what kind of future they promise. Do their stories provide some kind of vision out of the current chaos?