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An Emancipatory Feminist Discourse within an Islamic Reference: Mernissi’s

Legacy in Praxis

Chapter · January 2017

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 An Emancipatory Feminist Discourse within an Islamic Reference:
Mernissi’s Legacy in Praxis
Ginger Feather, University of Kansas, USA

Introduction

The UN human rights discourse and democratic principles are often juxtaposed against an

Islamic reference and cultural specificity as informing women’s rights activism and advocacy.

To an extreme, women in Muslim-majority countries, such as Morocco, are depicted by Western

media as submissive, subjugated, voiceless creatures, relegated to veiled, segregated lives within

the private sphere. Conversely, Western feminists are derided by Islamic conservatives as

anathema to Islamic precepts and concepts of womanhood, where unlimited freedom leads

inevitably to sexual promiscuity and debauchery. Moroccan feminist scholar Fatema Mernissi

refutes this dichotomization with her pioneering approach to the reinterpretation of sacred texts

using a feminist lens and in light of the historical context. Mernissi’s writings fostered an

unprecedented wave of Islamic exegete scholarship that debunks the dichotomy between a so-

called Western human rights discourse and an Islamic discourse portrayed as intrinsically

patriarchal and misogynistic. In The Veil and The Male Elite (1975) and Beyond the Veil (1987),

Mernissi envisions an alternative to the stalemate that is both culturally sensitive and

emancipatory, Muslim feminism. The progressive Muslim feminist viewpoint, later termed

Islamic feminism, delivers the rich religious underpinnings and cultural sensitivities absent from

Western feminist theories, while enabling Muslim women to author and be the subjects of their

own narratives. Essentialist dichotomizing and othering between Moroccan women’s rights

coalitions is particularly salient as it hinders meaningful engagement and dialogue.

Mernissi’s Islamic exegesis provided a critical explanation (tafsir) or interpretation

(ijtihad) of religious texts and brought to light women’s previous roles and influence within
Islam. Instead of women’s subjugation, these exegetes discover an emancipatory feminist

discourse in the religious texts that challenges conservative religious interpretations, patriarchal

cultural norms, and male privilege from within Islam. These scholars embrace the human rights

agenda of gender equality in addition to democratic principles, yet do so based on an Islamic

reference. Mernissi contended that gender equality and democratic principles, often derided as

Western imperialist constructs imposed on the Muslim world, actually originated with the advent

of the Muslim faith in the seventh century. Islam was founded on the principle of the equality of

all believers regardless of their sex, ethnic background, or social origin (Mernissi 1987: 42).

Mernissi asserts, however, that “the political elite instrumentalized religious texts to disguise

women’s past in order to dim their future” (1987: 11). Mernissi inspired Muslim academics,

activists, and advocates with a culturally sensitive reconciliation of the international human

rights discourse with their Islamic faith. Mernissi and other exegetes offered unique theoretical

insights, which informed the women’s rights discourse of Muslim rights advocates around the

world and challenged prevailing patriarchal power asymmetries. This chapter briefly

demonstrates Mernissi’s theoretical contributions, but focuses on the practical application of her

work by women’s rights activists and advocates, the nexus of Mernissi’s theories with Moroccan

women’s realities. This chapter analyzes Mernissi’s legacy in praxis.

Methodology

This analysis is based on more than one hundred in-depth interviews and focus groups

between 2012-2016 with Moroccan women’s rights advocates across the political spectrum. For

analytical and practical purposes, I divide Moroccan civil society actors into feminists

(secularists, socialists, and progressive Muslim feminists) and conservative Islamic anti-
feminists.1 Feminists perceive the patriarchal structures and male privilege denounced by

Mernissi as direct causes of systematic discrimination against women and attempt to break down

these structures in both the public and private sphere. Anti-feminists do not focus on patriarchal

privilege as the underlying root cause of gender inequality. Furthermore, while some do favor

women’s socioeconomic and political rights, the groups I term anti-feminists generally oppose

alterations to the traditional complementary gender roles within the family. Through the

interviews, this chapter analyzes the competing women’s rights theoretical frameworks and their

tactics to address gender inequality and discrimination, specifically in the 2004 Moroccan

Family Law. Morocco’s feminist women’s rights activists and advocates have relentlessly

challenged discriminatory laws and incrementally succeeded in making the Moroccan legal

codes some of the most progressive in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region.

Nevertheless, unsatisfied, feminists continue to strategize and organize for additional reforms

until gender equality is a Moroccan reality.

Muslim Feminist Theory: A History of Gender Equality

Mernissi rejects archaic male-elite consensus underlying previous interpretations of

Islamic religious texts and actively reinterpreted and contextualized Islam as an egalitarian

revolution for women. Mernissi’s unique theoretical and interpretive innovations influenced and

inspired a generation of exegete scholars across the globe, who further developed and expanded

Mernissi’s insights into a multicultural, global perspective, Muslim feminism. Muslim feminist

scholars include Egyptian Nawal El-Saadawi, Egyptian-American Leila Ahmed, Pakistani Asma

1
I borrow the term anti-feminist from Mariz Tadros (2016), who used the term to describe the Muslim sisters in
Egypt as well as youth activists during the Arab Spring who organized across genders and focused on social justice
as their dominant concern. As Tadros indicates, the term anti-feminist is not intended to be derogatory, only to
differentiate between the women’s associations who prioritize breaking down patriarchal cultural norms and gender
hierarchies within the family and those associations who seek to maintain traditional gender roles in the private
sphere.
Barlas, and African American Amina Wadud, as well as Iranian Ziba Mir-Hosseini and

American historian Margot Badran, who address the same phenomenon, under the term Islamic

feminism.

Muslim feminist scholarship represents a global application of ijtihad by feminist

scholars and provides a reconciliation of the dominant debates by reclaiming women’s rights

from within an Islamic reference. For Muslim feminists, the Islamic Revolution initiated by the

Prophet Muhammad was a break from the ignorant past (jahaliyya) and a democratic reform

movement for Islamic believers. Mernissi asserts: “Democracy and human rights…full

participation in the political and social affairs of our country, stems from no imported Western

values, but is a true part of the Muslim tradition” (1987: viii). In terms of gender equality,

Mernissi (1987) notes “Islam promised equality and dignity for all, men and women…whatever

their sex and ethnic or social background” (1987: 42). Nevertheless, the male elite [especially

under the second caliph Omar] could not tolerate an Islam that overturned the traditional pre-

Islamic relations between women and men, especially within the family (Mernissi 1987: 130).

Instead, upon Muhammad’s death, the male-elite, feeling their position challenged, limited the

revolution to public and spiritual life, but aborted the revolution within the family by instituting

a conservative interpretation of women’s position, in effect using the sacred to institutionalize

male dominance (Mernissi 1987: 142). Islamic doctrine was further consolidated under the

androcentric, misogynistic society of Abbasid Iraq, which stifled the voice of equality and

institutionalized patriarchal hierarchy (Ahmed 1992: 75 and 87).

As Muslim feminists observe, male privilege was further cemented by the separation of

public and private space in contradiction to the way the Prophet Muhammad conducted his own

life. The male elite instrumentalized the sacred to institutionalize their control and to legitimize
certain privileges: some political and some sexual in nature (Mernissi 1987: 43, 147). In the

political sphere, Mernissi indicates the examples of the Prophet and his wives did not

demonstrate gendered power asymmetries. Muhammad’s first wife, Khadija, asked the Prophet

to marry her, was the first convert to Islam, and Muhammad’s most important confidant during

the early stages of Islam. Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, became a political leader and

commanded an Islamic army (Mernissi 1975: 51). Furthermore, Mernissi shows that women at

the time of Muhammad had the right to enter into the councils of the Muslim umma, to speak

freely to the Prophet, to dispute with the men, and to be involved in the management of military

and political affairs (1987: viii). The political roles these women played reveal equality between

believers and women’s access to high-level leadership positions. Wadud notes “the Qur’an uses

no terms to imply that the position of ruler is inappropriate for a woman. On the contrary, the

Qur’anic story of Bilqis celebrates both her political and religious practices” (1999: 40).

Furthermore, Mernissi discredited the hadith that says “’Those who entrust their affairs to a

woman will never know prosperity,’ which is used to keep women out of politics” (Mernissi

1987: 49). In her analysis, Mernissi shows that Abu Bakra, who purportedly heard the Prophet

say this misogynistic phrase, was later flogged for giving false testimony and, therefore, must be

rejected as a source of hadith (61). Based on women’s position of strength in Islamic tradition,

Mernissi questions why men would want such a subservient companion: “How did the tradition

succeed in transforming the Muslim woman into that submissive, marginal creature [and] why

does the Muslim man need such a mutilated companion” (Mernissi 1987: 42)? Instead,

Mernissi advocates equality between the genders and promotes women’s equal responsibility for

directing and guiding the Moroccan state.

 Mernissi and Muslim feminist scholars also addressed male privilege with regard to

sexual matters. Mernissi contends “Islam banished all practices in which the sexual self-

determination of women was asserted” (1975: 67). Instead, “Islam socializes sexual intercourse

through the institution of marriage within the framework of the family” (Mernissi 1975: 59).

Furthermore, while women’s sexuality was curbed and civilized by Islam; men’s sexuality was

made more promiscuous due to polygamy and more lax by virtue of repudiation by which men

could divorce on a whim (Mernissi 1975: 46). Egyptian exegete Saadawi asserts that, “chastity

and virginity were considered essential for women, whereas freedom and even licentiousness

were looked upon as natural where men were concerned” (Sadaawi 1980: 27). For example,

according to Mernissi, there was no reliable evidence of polygamy in pre-Islamic times in Mecca

or Medina (1975: 68). Saadawi reinterprets surah 4:3, a passage used to claim polygamy as a

right for Muslim men, to demonstrate instead through a feminist lens that the passage actually

discredits polygamy as a legitimate option. “Marry as many women as you wish, two or three or

four. If you fear you cannot to treat them equally, marry only one. Indeed, you will not be able

to be just between your wives even if you try” (Saadawi 1997: 80). This circular logic allows

polygamy if a man is able to treat his wives equally, yet also denies the possibility that a man can

be just between multiple wives.

Mernissi and the Public-Private Paradigm

An underlying assumption Mernissi and other exegetes address is the necessity of

women’s movement from the private to the public sphere and their engagement as full citizens

through access to education, employment, and political power. In the social sphere, Mernissi

suggested that a practical way Western donor countries could promote women’s advancement in

Muslim states would be to make “loans to the Arab world from the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund…conditioned on support of women’s development, since 60-70% of [Moroccan]

women are illiterate.”2 Likewise, Mernissi promoted a pragmatic rationale for the incorporation

of women into the Moroccan economy, postulating that Muslim economic weakness is

attributable to the fact that only half the nation works, which in effect halves the country’s

creative potential and energy (Mernissi 1975: 14). It should be noted that conservative Islamic

anti-feminist women’s associations, such as Forum Zahrae, do promote women’s access to

education and to public sector jobs, so they are not against women’s equality in the public sector,

only the private.3 Moreover, Moroccan women have integrated into the public sector and the

face of gender relations has changed substantially through compulsory primary education for

both boys and girls and women’s incorporation into the economy. Nevertheless, gender equality

in the private sphere has lagged behind in both formal legal codes and cultural practices and

complementary gender roles still underlie the 2004 Moudawana and the gender relations in the

family it governs.

Mernissi in Praxis: Moroccan Activists and Advocates

Wadud asserts that shari’a, which serves as the referent for the Moroccan Family Law, is

thoroughly patriarchal as women were left out of its institutionalization and she claims the

reinterpretation must include women’s voices to correct this discrepancy.4 Many Moroccan

Muslim women’s rights associations fight for full equality between men and women and address

existing legal discrimination from within an emancipatory Islamic reference. Quoting one

Moroccan women’s rights advocate who wished to remain anonymous, “If we're talking about

the advocates and NGOs…I think Mernissi definitely played a huge role in enlightening their

2
Interview of Fatima Mernissi on Charlie Roads 14 September 1994 (Retrieved 15 November 2016).
3
Personal Interview with Forum Zahrae Pour la Femme Marocaine Aziza Elbakali Kassimi (Rabat) October 5, 2016
4
Amina Wadud, Frontline Interview, March 2002 (Retrieved 10 January 2017).
gender parity perspective.”5 Following decades of women’s rights activism and advocacy, the

1956 Personal Status Code was reformed in 1993 following the Million Signatures Campaign led

by the Union of Feminist Action (UAF) and again in 2004 following mass marches in 2000 by

both pro-reformers and conservative forces against family law reform. While the 1993 changes

seem somewhat insubstantial, Hassan II and the Royal Commission he appointed to oversee the

reform process illustrated that family law that had originally been seen as untouchable and sacred

could be reformed to institutionalize more equal gender relations within the Moroccan family.

The 2004 Family Law reform dropped the legal requirement for a wife to obey her husband,

stipulated that both spouses are responsible for the management of the household, and raised the

legal minimum age of marriage for women from 15 to 18, equal to that of men. In addition, the

2004 Family Law circumscribed a man’s right to repudiate his wife as well as a man’s right to

polygamy, both of which now require court approval. Nevertheless, feminist women’s

associations are quick to identify lingering discrimination in the Family Law, inconsistent with

both the UN human rights discourse as well as the Islamic exegete’s view of gender equality

stemming from within Islam. To analyze exactly how women’s rights activists across Morocco

have applied Mernissi’s principles to address discrimination within the 2004 Family law, I

explore three issues to see Mernissi’s theories in practice: underage marriage and polygamy,

maintenance (qawama), and gendered child custody and legal guardianship.

Underage Marriage, Polygamy, and Legal Loopholes

Women’s rights associations acknowledge that although the 2004 Family Law raised the

minimum age of marriage for women to eighteen to equal that of men (Article 19), the

application of the law has been gendered and discriminatory. The Democratic Association of

5
Anonymous. Conversation with women’s rights advocate on January 13, 2017.
Moroccan Women (ADFM) in Rabat indicates that as of 2012, 12% of contracted marriages

involved the marriage of minors with the number of underage marriages increasing each year.6

The progressive Muslim feminist Moroccan Association of Women’s Rights (AMDF) in

Casablanca notes, after the 2004 Family Law reform “all of the statistics that the women’s

associations carried out in the different regions of Morocco said that the exception stopped at

sixteen. That is to say that people married their daughters at seventeen, at sixteen, but now they

don’t marry their daughters at sixteen, it’s at fifteen, it’s at fourteen, it’s at thirteen.”7

Feminist women’s associations identify several potential loopholes to the minimum

marriage age. First, judges are granted discretionary power to authorize underage marriage

(Article 20), provided there is a reason for the exception, the approval of the minor’s parents,

and a medical exam or an investigation by a social worker confirming the eligibility of the

minor. Nevertheless, the discretionary power of the judges is unmonitored and ninety-nine

percent of underage marriages are girls, not boys,8 indicating that the problem of underage

marriage is gendered. Furthermore, the Initiative for the Protection of Women’s Rights (IPDF)

in Fez, which deals with violence against women (VAW) victims, reports that one-third of its

clients married as minors, indicating that minors who marry may suffer a higher incidence of

domestic violence than those of legal age.9 Likewise, ninety-nine percent of requests to marry

minors, almost exclusively girls, are accepted with possible reasons for the exception including

the walk to school is too long and dangerous, the family is poor, or a medical certificate says the

girl is likely to have sexual relations.10 With regard to parental consent, Amnesty International

6
Personal interview with ADFM General Secretary Fouzzia Yassine (Rabat) July 11, 2013
7
Personal interview with AMDF General Secretary Noufissa Ibn (Casablanca) July 10, 2013
8
Personal Interview with AMDF in General Secretary Noufissa Ibn (Casablanca) July 10, 2013
9
Personal Interview with Initiative Pour la Protection des Droits des Femmes (IPDF) Amine Baha (Fez) October 14,
2016
10
Personal Interview with Initiative Pour la Protection des Droits des Femmes (IPDF) Amine Baha (Fez) October
14, 2016
in Rabat indicates, the problem of underage marriage is especially common in rural areas, where

parents cannot support their daughters longer because they do not have the means and where

underage marriages are also the custom. If the girl exceeds sixteen and she is not married, then

she cannot marry and often parents fear for it.11 As for the medical exam or investigation by a

social worker, the Amal Association in El Hajeb notes that some violations occur at the level of

medical tests for the minor, which are not usually done by a gynecologist and are usually based

on mere observation. For the judiciary, it is enough that the girl looks physically normal, but

women’s associations insist the minor should have a medical exam by a gynecologist and a

psychological survey.12 The goal for these women’s associations is empowerment of the women

and equality with men in their marital relations as defined in Article 16 of the Convention on the

Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In contrast, an

alternative perspective from the conservative Islamic association al-Hidn in Casablanca, whom I

would classify as anti-feminist based on their maintenance of traditional power asymmetries in

the family, is less focused on women’s development and equality with men and more focused on

family honor and marriage as a protection for the girl. “By marrying off his underage daughter,

the father clears himself of her and is at peace knowing she is married. There are no problems of

honor.”13 Furthermore, al-Hidn casts marriage as a means of protection for the minor, but these

reasons for an underage marriage do not consider the challenges the girl will face without an

education as an empowerment tool, the dynamics within the marriage as an unequal partner, and

in the event of a divorce. Instead, al-Hidn focuses on the benefits of (underage) marriage from a

legal standpoint and from the point of view of protecting the girl. “When she has children, she

11
Personal interview with Amnesty International/Rabat on July 4, 2013
12
Personal Interview with the Association Amal Pour la Femme et le Development Hasna Allali and Fatiha Oudra
(El Hajeb) October 12, 2016
13
Personal interview with five members of the conservative Islamic al-Hidn Association Casablanca July 10, 2013.
has children who have papers, she has children who have a name, she has a husband who has

legal responsibilities to maintain his children. So it’s to protect her.”14 This concept of

protection, however, disempowers women and prevents them from becoming autonomous

individuals, instead seeing them only within the context of a marital relationship and

complementary rights and responsibilities. Al-Hidn asserts that the practice of marrying girls off

in poor rural areas after puberty is a cultural rather than a religious practice. Nevertheless, the

girl’s choices are framed within a conservative religious context where the concept of “family

honor” is prioritized over the social welfare and autonomy of the individual (female) child.

Feminist women’s rights associations call for an end to these exceptions as early marriage

prevents a girl from receiving an education and girls who marry early demonstrate higher

vulnerability to VAW.15

An additional legal loophole beyond the discretionary power of the judges is Article 16,

which empowers the court to register marriages post-facto, within an interim period not to

exceed five years from the date the law went into effect. The interim period was intended to

allow couples with an unregistered (fatiha) marriage an opportunity for official registration, but

this five-year period has been twice extended. Furthermore, couples and families have used

Article 16 to receive formal recognition for an underage or polygamous marriage, sidestepping

the criteria that allows for these two specific and clearly conditioned categories of marriage.16

Families also use Article 16 to circumvent the law and get a marriage certificate for a girl who

has gotten pregnant following a fatiha marriage. The Amal Association in El Hajeb notes that

Article 16 is considered a loophole and is often exploited to legalize underage marriage, as well

14
Personal interview with five members of the conservative Islamic al-Hidn Association Casablanca July 10, 2013.
15
Personal Interview with Initiative Pour la Protection des Droits des Femmes (IPDF) Amine Baha (Fez) October
14, 2016
16
Personal interview with Law Professor Jamila Ouhida (Rabat) October 5, 2016.
as to justify a polygamous marriage. Given that polygamy is now virtually illegal, this article

allows men to manipulate the law for their own benefit and gives them the chance to marry more

than one woman.17 This article is challenged by feminist women’s rights associations, who

argue that it allows families, men, and even the girls themselves to circumvent the law to register

an underage fatiha marriage or polygamous marriage, thereby forcing the judge post-facto to

register a marriage that would not have been legally sanctioned in the first place.

Qawama and Institutionalized Male Privilege

With regard to the concept of qawama, based on surah 4:34, which says “men are in

charge of women by what Allah has given one over the other and what men spend [for

maintenance] from their wealth.” This surah is used to reduce women to a legal dependent of

their husbands. Instead, Mernissi contextualizes the surah and posits, “Islam does not advance

the thesis of women’s inherent inferiority” (1975: 19). She further notes that one of the first acts

in independent China was to relieve husbands of the responsibility of supporting their wives and

to encourage wives to earn their own living as productive and not simply reproductive agents

(1975: 151). Tunisian exegete, Iqbal Gharbi, further explains, qawama has been interpreted as

the superiority of men over women, but actually should be rendered “make the responsibility of”

and is incompatible with gender equality. All male privilege accorded by Islam is conditional on

financially supporting female family members.18 To this end, Article 194 of the Family Code

obliges the husband to pay maintenance (nafaqa) to his wife the moment the marriage is

consummated. Therefore, qawama is a legal obligation for men when they marry and a right for

women. Nevertheless, the husband’s legal obligation to pay for his wife’s maintenance places

17
Personal interview with the Association Amal Pour la Femme et le Developpement Hasna Allali and Fatiha Oudra
(El Hajeb) October 12, 2016
18
Interview with Tunisian Islamic Exegetes Iqbal Gharbi at Zaituna University (Tunis) in June 2016
married women ipso facto into a dependent and subordinate position, denying them autonomy

and agency.19 Qawama privileges the socioeconomic investment in boys and men as the

providers, while indirectly undermining women’s right to an education and employment.20

Likewise, especially for poor agricultural families, qawama and the expectation that sons must

provide and daughters be provided for in marriage in effect makes daughters a financial liability

to their natal family, encourages their early marriage, while promoting the education and

development of sons. In effect, qawama perpetuates patriarchal power structures, traditional

gender roles, and male privilege by making wives the financial dependents of their husbands.

Finally, the concept of a husband’s role as bread winner or provider leaves women

economically vulnerable and disadvantaged in the event of a divorce, abandonment, or even the

illness of the husband. For example, Aisha is a middle-aged woman, whom I interviewed at

Tafiil Moubadarat in Taza. Her husband had been abusive and she sought help at the center.

The husband is no longer abusive, but he is now ill and no longer able to provide for her and

their three children. The husband did not work for the government and does not receive a

pension, so Aisha is now required to learn a trade and become the sole provider for her family, a

gendered role for which she was never groomed.21 Gender equality as envisioned in a feminist

reading of the sacred texts does not leave a woman incapacitated in the event her husband is

unable to fulfill his gendered role as provider.

Traditional Gender Roles: Custody and Guardianship

In the event of a divorce, the gendered division of labor between the spouses with regard

to the children endures. The mother has a “right” to the physical custody of the couple’s

19
See the importance of women’s autonomy in the 1995 Beijing Platform Plan of Action and CEDAW
20
The International Convention of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights guarantees a woman’s right to an
education and employment in Articles 13 and 6 respectively.
21
Personal interview with “Aisha” (a pseudonym) at Tafiil Moubadarat (Taza) October 13, 2016.
children until age 15 when the children decide with which parent to live (Article 171),

meanwhile the father is granted legal guardianship of the children (Article 236). With regard

to custody, the challenge is many women are not economically autonomous,22 due to their

perceived gendered role of being provided for and not the provider. AMDF notes that almost

two-thirds of Moroccan women don’t work outside the home and of that two-thirds almost all are

illiterate. So, while women are given a right to child custody, it is also a heavy responsibility that

the husband really wants to be rid of himself.23 Without the responsibility of children’s physical

custody, husband’s are free to pursue their jobs and lives unhindered, while the custodial mother

must attempt to balance the physical demands of the children with their financial maintenance,

especially since many fathers do not pay the requisite child support designated by the courts.

Furthermore, if the custodial mother remarries, she can lose custody of her children (Article

175). IPDF in Fez notes that often the mother does lose custody of the children if she remarries

so the majority of the time women do not remarry. Meanwhile, the husband does remarry with

no complications.24 Likewise, if a woman has a child who is handicapped, she never remarries

and the child remains with her indefinitely.25 These gender roles place the children physically

with the mother, while granting the father sole legal responsibility for the children. The

feminists challenge these gender roles, while the anti-feminist maintain them as complementary

gender roles and not gender equality is their assumption.

As for the father’s right to sole legal guardianship of the children, this right of the father

places the mother in a precarious position vis-à-vis her children that causes many difficulties.

22
Personal Interview with Initiative Pour la Protection des Droits des Femmes (IPDF) Amine Baha (Fez) October
14, 2016
23
Personal Interview with AMDF in General Secretary Noufissa Ibn (Casablanca) July 10, 2013
24
Personal Interview with Initiative Pour la Protection des Droits des Femmes (IPDF) Amine Baha (Fez) October
14, 2016
25
Personal Interview with AMDF in General Secretary Noufissa Ibn (Casablanca) July 10, 2013
UAF in Tetouan notes, “since they are divorced, when they need a paper, a passport, a visa or

anything, they are forced to use the ex-husband and, of course, the ex-husbands very often use

[guardianship] as a means of blackmail.”26 ADFM’s Nejma Listening Center notes, if a woman

wants to leave the conjugal home and to stay with her parents in Fez, but she has a child in

school in Rabat, the mother doesn’t have the right to take the child to Fez if the father refuses.

The mother doesn’t have the right to register the child at a different school; only the father can

register the child at school and if he refuses, the child must remain in his/her current school.27

The laws reinforce traditional gender roles with the wife given physical responsibility for the

children’s care and the husband financial control of and responsibility for the children’s

maintenance. Women’s rights associations as well as human rights associations have challenged

these gendered roles and the hardships they place on women and men. Until a 2013 reform, “the

father could even appoint a guardian after his death and may designate anyone, depriving the

mother of exercising this right.”28 Mohamed V Family Law professor Jamila Ouhida notes that

the Moroccan legislature revised the legal guardianship article to allow the mother guardianship

of the children if the father is dead, incapacitated, or in prison.29 Women’s rights associations

reject these gendered roles in favor of joint responsibilities for the children in terms of custodial

and guardianship rights.

Conclusion

Mernissi’s Muslim feminist theories provide the theoretical framework for Moroccan

women’s rights activists and advocates to pursue a rights-based discourse of gender equality, not

26
Personal interview with UAF General Secretary in Tetouan and member of the Regional Human Rights
Commission of Tangier Nadia Nair (Tetouan) July 8, 2013
27
Personal interview with the Nejma Listening Center for Domestic Violence Mounia el-Khattab (Rabat) on
October 10, 2016
28
Personal interview with UAF General Secretary in Tetouan and member of the Regional Human Rights
Commission of Tangier Nadia Nair (Tetouan) July 8, 2013
29
Personal interview with Law Professor Jamila Ouhida (Rabat) October 5, 2016.
as a Western construct but instead from within an Islamic reference. The Muslim feminist

discourse has provided a new paradigm for women’s rights in Morocco that does not alienate but

incorporates Muslim adherents. The ability of women’s rights associations to overcome

differences and reach consensus has helped establish Morocco as one of the most progressive

Arab Muslim countries in terms of gender equality.

While many Moroccan women’s rights activists and advocates self-identify as Muslim,

they simultaneously embrace the universal human rights discourse and espouse a feminist

perspective to address patriarchal cultural norms and male privilege. These activists cross

ideological divides to address shared concerns regarding gendered underage marriage, the

disempowering custom of qawama, and gendered arrangements for child care and guardianship

in the event of a divorce. Mernissi’s influence is no longer simply a theoretical contribution,

Mernissi’s theories have informed the epistemology and praxis of Moroccan feminist rights

activists on both sides of the secular-religious divide creating a valuable third space amenable to

understanding and consensus building.

 Personal Interviews Included in Chapter
Personal Interview with Initiative Pour la Protection des Droits des Femmes (IPDF) Amine Baha
(Fez) October 14, 2016
Personal interview with Amnesty International/Rabat on July 4, 2013
Personal Interview with the Association Amal Pour la Femme et le Development Hasna Allali
and Fatiha Oudra (El Hajeb) October 12, 2016
Personal interview with five members of the conservative Islamic al-Hidn Association
Casablanca July 10, 2013.
Personal interview with Law Professor Jamila Ouhida (Rabat) October 5, 2016.
Personal interview with ADFM General Secretary Fouzzia Yassine (Rabat) July 11, 2013
Interview with Tunisian Islamic Exegetes Iqbal Gharbi at Zaituna University (Tunis) in June
2016
Personal interview with “Aisha” (a pseudonym) at Tafiil Moubadarat (Taza) October 13, 2016.
Personal Interview with AMDF in General Secretary Noufissa Ibn (Casablanca) July 10, 2013
Personal Interview with National Council of Human Rights (NCHR) Mostafa Naoui (Rabat)
October 17, 2016
Personal interview with UAF General Secretary in Tetouan and member of the Regional Human
Rights Commission of Tangier Nadia Nair (Tetouan) July 8, 2013
Personal interview with the Nejma Listening Center for Domestic Violence Mounia el-Khattab
(Rabat) October 10, 2016
Personal Interview with Forum Zahrae Pour la Femme Marocaine Aziza Elbakali Kassimi
(Rabat) October 5, 2016
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