The Moroccan Women’s Rights Movement. Gender and Globalization Series. By Amy Young Evrard. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014. Pp. 300, with references and index. $75.64. ISBN: 9780815633501.
Women’s rights in the Middle East have been a hot topic in discussions and publications for many years. The book by Evrard makes a significant contribution to this subject. Although the Middle East, including North Africa, is often considered a monolith, each country is different. The major connecting factor is Islam, but even with the same religion, each state varies because of the leaders, laws, history, and civic engagement. Morocco is a majority Muslim country (99%), but it has its own history, and furthermore, its leaders have had a great influence on the rights of women. The purpose of this book was to investigate the women’s movement in its unique form in Morocco. Evrard did field research for her dissertation mainly in 2002–2003 by examining the day-to-day work and realities of activists and the movement.
As an anthropologist, Evrard has the skills and knowledge to conduct such an ethnographic investigation. She was an anthropology professor at Gettysburg College when she published this book. She uses grounded, long-term fieldwork to study the rules of order, conflicts, rituals, performances, and critiques of the associations and individuals involved in the women’s rights movement. Methods included direct observation, participant observation, interviews, and casual talks with individuals involved in the organizations.
It is important to know about the political history of Morocco in order to understand the context of the women’s movement. Since the founding of the first Moroccan state in 788 AD by Idris I, the country has been ruled by a number of dynasties, but avoided Ottoman occupation. However, with European colonization of Africa, Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates. In 1956 it regained its independence, and is currently a unitary constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The prime minister, whom the king appoints, is head of the government. The parliament makes the laws, but the king has considerable power. The civil laws, for the most part, are based on French law because of colonization; however, family law, which deals with marriage, divorce, custody of children, and inheritance, follows Islamic tradition, based upon the Sharia. The women’s movements were organized to push for change in the family law, known in Morocco as the Mudawwana (also spelled Mudawana and Moudawana). Evrard’s research investigated women and their organizations that were working to provide more equality in family law and, more generally, in society.
During her fieldwork, the author interviewed numerous women involved in several women’s organizations and spent time in their headquarters. After working with them for some time, she concluded that the main goals were reforming the Moroccan family code and raising awareness of women’s rights. She chronicles the history of the women’s movements in origin, evolution, and application. The structure of the book demonstrates the process of how women’s rights groups shaped the eventual reforms to the Mudawwana.
Chapter one is titled “Convincing Women,” in which Evrard explains how the women’s groups convince others to join in the women’s rights movement. The movement coalesced to prioritize rights over development, mainly women’s rights in family law. She explains that women may join for a variety of reasons, including personal motivations (their own situation and how change can help them), seeking relationships, supporting the cause, or in hopes of developing professional skills. As individuals are convinced of the cause, they become activists. In this case, “activist” describes a person who has undergone a process of moving beyond a personal concern with her own situation to a realization that women share a collective problem requiring a comprehensive solution—specifically, reform of the Mudawwana. Joining with other women in the group allows them to be in public spaces and feel like they can produce a collective identity to deal with collective problems. Although there were hundreds of varying associations focused on different things, in general they were all working towards more equality and rights for women.
Chapter two, titled “Obstacles and Opportunities,” explains some of the country’s history in terms of politics, civil society, religion, etc. The women’s rights movement had to navigate relationships with the monarchy, political parties, and external funders. Hassan II was the king when the women’s movement was growing and becoming a force in the country. He promised to do something about the inequality between men and women, but it did not happen during his lifetime. When King Hassan II died in June 1999, his son Muhammed VI began to reign. He was more supportive of women’s rights and in 1999, he created the Plan of Action for the Integration of Women in Development. However, development without rights is insufficient for addressing women’s problems. So the women’s organizations focused on women’s rights to begin with and hoped that would result in more development and gender equality. The Moroccan Women’s Rights Movement (MWRM) grew out of left-leaning political parties and often included the wives of leftist activists who worked for modern, secular, progressive goals for civil society. In February 2004, the King enacted a new family code, the Mudawwana, which granted women more power.
Other groups formed that provided humanitarian service to the poor, and the religiously devoted women wanted some modifications within the parameters of Islam. These women wanted their “own Islam,” as Sherine Hafez wrote about in her book on Egyptian women, An Islam of Her Own. Meanwhile, secular women felt that the obstacle to women’s equity and empowerment was the Islam-based family code. Eventually, the various associations became a mostly unified movement despite some fissures.
Women’s human rights are the focus of chapter three. Evrard bases her analysis of the movement on three frames. The first two, “equality” and “women’s human rights,” are transnational feminist frames that have linked women’s groups around the world together and provided the foundation for the Moroccan women’s rights movement. The third is a newer and more locally-derived frame which she titles the “harmonious family” frame. Growing out of decades of work with women on the ground in Morocco, association activists have come to understand that women are concerned about how women’s rights will affect their families as well as themselves as individuals (p. 138). Moroccan women were influenced by transnational ideas but they applied them locally. So the MWRM has attempted to link transnational feminist discourses with local realities and understandings of women’s place within both the family and society. The MWRM was also impacted by the United Nations conferences on women, where women from around the world were able to meet, share ideas and agendas, argue, and formulate proposals and declarations. Moroccans used the equality frame as a link between local experience and transnational feminist discourse.
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Women’s human rights activists in many places focus on eliminating violence, poverty, and oppression, and supporting education, literacy, and individual rights. It is a challenge for women to bring their gender’s experiences with violence out of the realm of private gossip to be addressed as a public, societal matter. In the Middle East, much of the focus is on the Islamic family law, which is heavily weighted in favor of the husband. Association members felt that the best way to change this is through education, teaching women their rights, and sustained public conversation. “We also see how Mudawwana reform is conceived by activists as the necessary first step in the education process that will improve the status of women in Moroccan society” (p. 175).
Chapter four states that Mudawwana reform actually began in 1992 with the collection of signatures demanding that Hasan II reform the family law. However, it wasn’t until his son, Muhammad VI, became king that action was taken when he formed a commission on women’s issues and developed the Plan of Action in 1999. Parliament debated the King’s plan and approved it. It was implemented in February 2004. Some pious women opposed parts of it even though they also wanted more rights. The reform curtailed polygamy, raised the legal marriage age to 18 for both men and women, gave more freedom for women to choose whom to marry, made divorce easier for women, and gave women more access to custody of children. Previously the legal age of marriage for girls was 15, but many girls wanted to further their education. Increasing the age gives young women more time for school, work, hobbies, etc. Moroccans generally support education for girls, which is changing some of the gender dynamics. The marriage contract may include protections for women so divorce is less likely. But now divorce can be initiated by the wife for “irreconcilable” differences. The revisions to the law were a good start, but the implementation was difficult as women needed to be educated about these rights.
In chapter five, Evrard discusses how most activists are urbanites and quite well-to-do. They often go into rural areas to interview women about their lives and to educate them. Their desire is to help these women to improve their position in families and provide aid to them. Most women marry because they realize that marriage is ultimately the best prospect for the future under the current economic and social situation, but that makes them dependent on men. So activists face a dilemma of helping women within the framework of the patriarchal family. They work for the wellbeing of the families and communities through the wellbeing of the women within them. This produces the new frame called the “harmonious family.” The Mudawwana serves to better family life, not just for women, but the whole family. This in turn helps all of society. The aim is to improve the status and sense of self within the family; therefore, activists need to educate women about equality and women’s rights in order to transform the family itself. The revisions in the Mudawwana make this equality legalized, but the challenge is to convince men as well and to encourage people to behave according to the laws.
Some women in Islamist parties are moderate and support legal reform, but many are more interested in social and economic realms than political. They feel that the rules of Islam should continue in place, but they should assist with development. The more secular groups find that the harmonious family that follows the reformed family law have better outcomes, so they are trying to change the discourse to empower women within the family. Moderate groups from various ideologies are trying to work together to improve women’s rights within both the family and society.
As stated, Evrard conducted her research just before the Mudawwana was revised, and she published her book ten years later, so she concludes it with a few issues and events that have arisen since her research. In March 2011, the Moroccan King gave a speech promising more involvement of women in public, more equality through constitutional reform, and limiting the powers of the monarchy. Through legislation and with the King’s support, violence against women, forced marriage, and sexual harassment were criminalized. In the elections of late 2011, Islamists won many seats in parliament, but in coalition with other parties. A quota of 10% for the number of women in parliament was established. However, women still carry the burden of honor and shame, and implementation of new laws is still a challenge. Morocco has a longstanding and strong women’s rights movement, a revolutionary Mudawwana, and moderate Islamists willing to show support for certain aspects of women’s rights, so it may be a pattern that other countries could follow.
Evrard’s research and book are important additions to understanding the workings of the women’s rights movement in Morocco. Morocco’s landmark revision of their family law is seen as an example of what can be done in the Middle East to improve the situation for women. Many books have been written about Morocco’s efforts to provide more advantages to them. Books which were published before Evrard’s book, and which she references, are: Voices of Resistance: Oral Histories of Moroccan Women (1998) by Alison Baker; States and Women’s Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco (2001) by Mounira Charrad; Women, Language, and Gender in Morocco (2003) by Fatima Sadiqi; The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco (2005) by Susan Slyomovics; and Between Feminism and Islam: Human Rights and Sharia Law in Morocco (2011) by Zakia Salime. A book published just before Evrard’s, but not found in her bibliography, is Liberalization and Autocracy in Morocco: The Puzzle of the Moudawana Reform (2012) by Julie Pruzan-Jorgensen. A couple of books published the same year as Evrard’s in 2014 that also deal with women’s activism and Morocco include: Moroccan Women, Activists, and Gender Politics: An Institutional Analysis by Eve Sandberg and Kenza Aqertit, and Moroccan Feminist Discourses by Fatima Sadiqi. In 2016, two other books on this topic were published: Modernizing Patriarchy: The Politics of Women’s Rights in Morocco by Katja Zvan Elliott, and Moroccan Feminisms: New Perspectives by Moha Ennaji, Fatima Sadiqi, and Karen Vintages. This number of books demonstrates the interest in Moroccan women, and each one has a different approach or aspect they focus on. As more research is done and more changes occur, Evrard’s book will be important as one of many that tell the story of women’s activism in the country of Morocco while serving as an historical document.
Evrard’s book is well written and not only provides scholarly data and insights, but also details personal stories of individual activists that make the reading enjoyable. The book is well-documented too, with a reference list of 187 books and journal articles, 23 newspapers and internet items, and 22 published reports and association materials. The crux of Evrard’s argument is that transnational efforts for women’s rights were applied to local Moroccan situations to create a MWRM, whose goal was to improve family dynamics resulting in a harmonious family and more equity between women and men.
Connie Lamb
Brigham Young University