Moroccan Feminism As Universal Feminism: African Voices from the Feminist Struggle, C.1930-2000 Osire Glacier

6 Moroccan Feminism as Universal Feminism: African Voices from the Feminist Struggle, c.1930-2000 Osire Glacier Global Contexts The purpose of this chapter is to discuss feminism as an African, and particularly Moroccan, experience and ideology. Most people in the West believe that feminism is a strictly Western ideology, and that feminism in non-Western societies is a Western import, or at best only produced by an “indigenous” Westernized elite. The dominant narratives of world history locate the origins of feminism in Europe and United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. These world historians are guided by a dominant set of feminist histories themselves. The dominant histories of feminism have been produced by Euro- American countries approximately up to the beginning of the new millennium.1 These histories are themselves part of the vast feminist literature that was produced in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in the West, rather than in the rest of the World.2 The prevalence of this Western dominance in the feminist literature has led scholars like Miriam Schnier to argue that feminism could only have emerged from the West and not, for example, from Muslim harems, including the Moroccan harem3. Feminist scholars like Schnier thus link feminism to Western modernity, whose manifestations are the industrial revolution, the expansion of capitalism that attracted women to the job market and the enlightenment philosophy that underlies individual rights and social movements.4 In other words, in their view feminism is intimately bound to Western economic development and democratic progress. In the last decade, however, this historiography has begun to show interest in non-Western feminisms, as we shall see below. Indeed, women’s resistance --of which feminism is one of many forms of ideas, discourses, ways of life, individual or collective actions and social constructions of inequalities between the sexes --is not solely a feature of Western societies. In fact, such resistance has always existed, and continues to exist in all human societies, although it is often ignored by historians. As the feminist theorist Chandra Mohanty has pointed out, whereas the history of Western feminism has been amply studied, the history of feminism in the rest of the world is still untold.5 For this reason, this chapter 1 Miriam Schneir ed., Feminism, the Essential Historical Writings (New York: Random House, 1972), xii; Estelle B. Freedman ed., The Essential Feminist Reader (New York: The Modern Library, 2007), xv; Eliane Gubin, Catherine Jacques & Florence Rochefort dir., Le siècle des féminismes (Paris : les Éditions de l’Atelier, 2004), 15. 2 Schneir, op. cit., xiv. 3 Ibid. 4 Estelle Freedman, op. cit., xii; Gubin, Jacques & Rochefort dir., op.cit., 15. 5 Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Ann Russo & Lourdes Torres eds., Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 3. In the introduction to the book, Mohanty opposes the feminist 1 begins by narrating the history of Moroccan feminism, while analyzing some key concepts of dominant feminist historiography such as feminism, modernity, democracy, and Westernization. Ultimately, such an analysis demonstrates that Moroccan feminism is an integral part of universal feminism, which is defined as a series of ideas, discourses and actions conveyed by isolated individuals or collective groups, with the aims of denouncing social constructions of inequalities between the sexes and of remedying the situation by promoting women’s rights. Discourse is a series of narratives which are produced in a specific social and historical context, with a particular aim in mind – here the aim is the improvement of women’s condition. Thus, discourse supposes strategies that depend on a given social and historical context. In other words, universal feminism is part of the lived experiences and perspectives of women in many places and times, and often appears as a dialogue among women as a group formed around common issues and interests. Another aspect of this chapter gives a voice to some Moroccan feminists, so that the reader can appreciate these feminist discourses. A brief history of Western Feminism If ones considers the history of feminism as it is normally narrated, the pioneering feminists were European women who contested their conditions as women as early as the 15th century.6 This is how Christine de Pizan came to be recognized as the first woman to have written to defend women.7 Other European women came afterwards, such as Modesta di Pozzo di Forzi, Marie le Jars de Gournay and Mary Wollstonecraft.8 However, most histories suggest that modern feminism was born much later, in the 19th century in Europe and United States.9 These histories argue that the advent of women’s collective organization in this period distinguishes modern feminism from the incidents of women’s resistance of earlier centuries, which were largely acts of individual resistance. These collective organizations led to a social movement that has as its objective to modify the laws and mentalities that perpetuated inequalities between the sexes. Having identified these nineteenth century collective organizations as the point of origin for modern feminism, these histories then classify modern feminism into three waves of thought and activism. The first wave of feminist activism began in the 19th century and continued into the beginning of the 20th century in the United States, Britain, Germany and France. During this period, feminist activists historiography of Western countries with that of “developing nations”. In order to avoid confusion due to multiple terminological referents, the concept of “developing nations” has been replaced by that of “the rest of the world.” 6 Schneir ed., op.cit., xii. 7 Simone de Beauvoir, trad. & ed. H. M. Parshley, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 105. 8 Schneir ed., op. cit., xii; Maggie Humm ed., Modern Feminisms, Political, Literary, Cultural (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 4. 9 Janet S. Chafetz & Anthony Gary Dworkin, Female Revolt: Women’s Movements in World and Historical Perspective (Totowa: Rowman & Allanheld, 1986), 103. 2 primarily sought to promote women’s suffrage, or right to vote. For this reason, they are often called “suffragettes”, however they also denounced other inequalities, such as imbalances within marriage and women’s lack of financial autonomy.10 Emmeline Pankhurst in Britain, Charlotte Perkins and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in United States and Jeanne Deroin in France are among the leaders of this movement. The first wave of feminism ended when these suffragettes finally attained their goal. This largely occurred through the modification of the American, British, German and French constitutions, all of which granted women the right to vote in the beginning of the 20th century.11 However, in the following decades women realized that gaining the right to vote did not eradicate discrimination against them. Consequently, in the 1960s and 70s, the second phase of feminism was concerned with all forms of discrimination against women.12 This period corresponds to the women’s liberation movement. Thus, expressions such as “Women’s Liberation” were used in the United States in early 1960s, “The British Women’s Liberation Movement” was used in Britain in 1968, and “le Mouvement de libération des femmes” appeared in the French press in 1970. These second-wave feminists focused more on personal and social issues rather than political rights. Important topics included reproductive rights and birth control, equal pay and treatment in the workplace, and the division of labor in the home. The slogans “One is not born a woman, but becomes one” and “The personal is political” describe the spirit of the movement.13 In other words, these feminists argued that the inequality experienced by women in their interactions in the private sphere were indications of unequal power structures in the political sphere. Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Kate Millett and Shulamith Firestone are among the great thinkers of this phase.14 The third wave of feminism began in the 1990s. This phase did not contradict previous ones, it did reflect new challenges faced by feminists in this era. On the one hand, feminists were facing a backlash; while on the other, they needed to fill some gaps left behind by feminist activities during the second wave.15 Thus third wave feminism included many distinct but overlapping critiques of earlier feminist thought. For example, postcolonial feminism emerged in this period to address the omission of non- Western women from first wave and second wave feminist discourse. Postcolonial feminists argued (and continue to argue) that the dominant feminist discourse reduces feminist issues to the experiences 10 Schneir ed., op.cit., xiv-xv. 11 Humm ed., op.cit., 2. 12 Chafetz & Dworkin, op.cit., 163. 13 The first slogan, in Simone de Beauvoir, op. cit., the second slogan is Carol Hanisch’s, in Theresa Man Ling Lee, «Rethinking the Personal and the Political: Feminist Activism and Civic Engagement», Hypatia vol 22.4 (2007) : 163. 14 De Beauvoir, op. cit.; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton), 1962; Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970); Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case of Feminist Revolution (New York: Morrow, 1970). 15 Susan Faludi, Backlash, the Undeclared War Against American Women (New York: Anchor Book, 1992), ix-xxiii & 454-460.

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