Formation of a new gender order in Tunisia after the revolution

Project management: Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter

The newly negotiated gender order in post-revolutionary Tunisia was addressed in the research, which was embedded in the focus area “Post/secularism”. Ms. Zayed worked with female parliamentarians from the Islamist Ennahdha party in the National Constituent Assembly and observed decision-making processes. After a long political struggle and dispute, the transformation phase ends with the adoption of the “new” Tunisian constitution of the “second” republic on 26.01.2014.
The Tunisian gender order is defined by traditional customs, religion and seemingly unshakeable hierarchies. In this respect, patriarchal elites are resisting the social change that young people are seeking and demanding. This was the credo of the Tunisian revolution. However, it is an issue that is closely interwoven with questions of law, economics and social policy.
The interviews depicted the current state of affairs with regard to the gender order in Tunisian society. The positioning of the researcher played a central role in this. As a woman wearing a headscarf, Ms. Zayed gained the spontaneous trust of her female counterparts in the Islamist Ennahdha party, who would by no means have given a male researcher comparable open information. As a self-confessed Muslim woman, she also earned the respect of men who did not refuse to answer her questions. However, this access also showed her the limits of her work. The secular-oriented women’s rights activists of the “Association des Femmes Démocrates” refused to answer her scientific questions because they saw the headscarf as a “political symbol”. For this reason, she changed her initially very broad research question and concentrated on the women’s wing of Tunisia’s most prominent Islamist party.
The research shows a rigid understanding of Islam on the part of the women involved and the persistence of traditional role models. It is women who justify the mechanisms of oppression and enforce them on young people. The patriarchal family is regarded as the nucleus of Tunisian society, and the father’s word of power is considered unquestionable by Islamists. Premarital sex among women is a punishable offense, while for men it is seen solely as a peccadillo. The cult of virginity is becoming increasingly grotesque and promotes nothing other than the equally frowned upon anal intercourse of unmarried women as well as medical businesses in Tunisia that produce and insert artificial hymens. Homosexuals have to hide and are prosecuted. Divorced women are stigmatized and branded as difficult to place. In addition, sexual violence is on the rise and is rarely reported because the police almost always blame the victim.
In summary, it can be said that the double standards outlined above pose a serious problem for women. Individual rights that protect women must continue to be enforced in the future, especially against orthodox Muslims and the powerful Salafists.

The project is currently in the phase of writing up the results. The aim is to submit the dissertation at the end of 2017.

Early interim results were published as:

Schröter, Susanne and Sonia Zayed: “Tunisia: From State Feminism to Revolutionary Islamism”, in: S. Schröter (ed.): Gender justice through democratization? Transformations and restorations of gender relations in the Islamic world Bielefeld: Transcript, 2013, pp. 17-44.

people in this project:

Project management / contact person

Schröter, Susanne, Prof. Dr.

Project staff

Hensler, Jonas

Khatib, Hakim

Lang, Sabine, Dr.

Zayed, Sonja