The first two decades of the 21st century has seen its share of dramatic events: the \u201cwar on terror\u201d launched in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 assaults on U.S. cities; the 2003 US\/UK-led invasion and occupation of Iraq; the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession; the 2011 Arab uprisings, Occupy Wall Street, and European anti-austerity protests; the NATO assault on Libya and external intervention in Syria; the 2015 migration crisis; the global expansion of right-wing populist movements and governments; a new cycle of protests in France, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Lebanon, and the U.S. in 2018-2020; and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Clearly, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership has been unable to shape those events and their outcomes. Equally clear is that women have been involved in and affected by those events in multiple ways, whether as agents or victims. In this paper, I examine the Arab Mediterranean region to elucidate women\u2019s presence in varied movements and mobilizations, and their participation in national and local governance. Indeed, women\u2019s intensive involvement in both institutional and non-institutional politics \u2013 in governance, civil society, and contentious politics \u2013 has been a hallmark of 21st century leadership and activism. Women\u2019s presence, however, varies across countries. Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia have long had vocal and visible women\u2019s rights organizations with the capacity to influence legislation, and the adoption of gender quotas and proportional representation electoral systems has enabled a relatively large female presence in local and national governance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This paper examines expressions of feminist contentious politics, women\u2019s involvement in broader protest movements, and implications for old and emerging forms of governance. It highlights demands for new gendered social contracts, more responsive government, and societal change. Despite the region\u2019s serious economic and employment challenges as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, women\u2019s continued activism in both civil society and political society reflects the profound social changes that have occurred over the past four decades, with implications for democratization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arab Mediterranean women have a long history of involvement in broad socio-political movements, from Egypt\u2019s 1919 revolution to the mid-century independence movements of Algeria and Morocco to the 1987 Palestinian Intifada. The largest displays of female involvement in mass protests have come about in the new century, exemplified by Tunisian and Egyptian women\u2019s presence in the January-February 2011 uprisings. Women\u2019s public and political presence results from advances in educational attainment over the past forty years, with high tertiary enrollments enabling women\u2019s entry into an array of professions. It also results from the growth of numerous women\u2019s rights organizations and other non-governmental and civil society organizations representing women\u2019s concerns and aspirations. The 1980s saw growing concerns over the diffusion of Islamic fundamentalism and thus the emergence of anti-fundamentalist networks and movements and new feminist groups; the 1990s saw considerable organizing and mobilizing for change in alignment with the Beijing process and the global women\u2019s rights agenda; and the new century saw increasingly audacious critiques of authoritarianism and patriarchy, with concomitant calls for democracy and women\u2019s empowerment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such forms of feminist engagement, or \u201cpolitics-from-below\u201d [1]<\/a>1 \u2014 Charrad, Mounira M. and Amina\u00a0Zarrugh.\u00a02014.\u00a0\u201cEqual or complementary? Women in the new Tunisian Constitution after the Arab Spring.\u201d\u00a0The Journal of North African Studies\u00a019\u00a0(2): 230\u2013243.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>, are distinguished from the variants of \u201cstate feminism\u201d that prevailed in Tunisia during the Bourguiba and Ben Ali periods or in Egypt under Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarak. Still, when Algerian president Bouteflika appointed five women to his cabinet in 2002 and in 2005 proffered some amendments to the family law, this act of state feminism was in fact a reward for women\u2019s suffering and feminist defiance during the \u201cblack decade\u201d of Islamist terrorism, and a (partial) response to feminist demands for an egalitarian family law. In Morocco, the landmark 2004 family law reform, approved by the King and adopted by the parliament, was the product of a decade-long advocacy campaign by Moroccan feminists in the Union d\u2019action feminine (UAF) and the Association d\u00e9mocratique des femmes du maroc (ADFM), starting with the 1993 One Million Signatures campaign. Egyptian women took part in the 2005 Kefaya (Enough) movement criticizing the contested presidential election, and after 2011 formed many new groups focused on the pervasive problem of sexual harassment and abuse of women in public spaces. In 2011-2013, Tunisian feminists organized rallies to defy Islamist calls for a rollback of women\u2019s rights legislation [2]<\/a>2 \u2014 Moghadam, Valentine M.\u00a02013.\u00a0Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle\u00a0Easte.\u00a0Boulder and London: Lynne\u00a0Rienner\u00a0Publishers. 3rd\u00a0ed.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Arab Mediterranean women have expressed individual and especially collective agency, which often has included coalitions with other civil society actors as well as with allies in political parties, that has resulted in the passage of new laws and policies for women\u2019s participation and rights<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n The decades of feminist advocacy have borne fruit in the form of legal and policy reforms. In the early years of the current century, Morocco joined Tunisia in permitting women equal rights to divorce when its family law, the Moudawana, was reformed. At around the same time, Rana al-Husseini\u2019s journalistic advocacy in Jordan drew attention to the serious social problem of \u201chonor crimes\u201d. Elsewhere, feminists highlighted other forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, workplace sexual harassment, the daily indignities of women in public spaces. In September 2013, the Egyptian state criminalized sexual harassment in response to tremendous pressure from women\u2019s groups such as HarassMap, WenDo, Nazra for Feminist Studies, and the Egyptian Center for Women\u2019s Rights, which had long sought to draw official attention to the problem [3]<\/a>3 \u2014 Abdelmonem, Angie\u00a0and Susana\u00a0Gal\u00e1n. 2017. \u201cAction-Oriented Responses to sexual harassment in Egypt: The Cases of\u00a0HarassMap\u00a0and\u00a0WenDo.\u201d\u00a0Journal of Middle East Women\u2019s Studies\u00a013\u00a0(1): 154-164\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. (In November 2013, however, the Egyptian government banned free assembly and public demonstrations.) Feminists also sought the repeal of laws and practices enabling the rapist of an unmarried girl to escape punishment by marrying his victim. Egypt began the regional trend when it abolished such \u201cmarry your rapist\u201d laws in 1999, followed by Morocco in 2014, Tunisia, Jordan, and Lebanon in 2017, and Palestine in 2018. Tunisia\u2019s July 2017 anti-VAW law (loi integral 58) contains sections on \u201cprevention\u201d, \u201cprotection and support\u201d, and \u201cprosecution\u201d [4]<\/a>4 \u2014 El Watan, \u00ab\u202fDeclaration: Femmes Algeriennes pour un changement vers l\u2019egalit\u00e9 (21 March 2019), Available online.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span> The new laws are closely monitored by the region\u2019s feminist organizations and women-led NGOs, many of which are registered on the platform of the Euro-Mediterranean Women\u2019s Foundation [5]<\/a>5 \u2014 See the Euro-Mediterranean Women\u2019s Foundation website.\n<\/span><\/span>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n More advances have come about, such as the Moroccan government\u2019s adoption in spring 2019 of laws to grant rural women property rights over land, another advocacy victory for the ADFM. On the other hand, the Tunisian feminist campaign for equal inheritance rights stalled after the death of President Essebsi. Meanwhile, women of varied backgrounds took part in the renewed 2018-2020 cycle of protests in Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia around unemployment, government incompetence, and privatization of public services or their deteriorating conditions. In Algeria, amid protests in February 2019 against a fifth term for the ailing president, a group of feminist intellectuals penned a solidarity statement and called for social and gender equality [6]<\/a>6 \u2014 El Watan, \u00ab\u202fDeclaration: Femmes Algeriennes pour un changement vers l\u2019egalit\u00e9\u00a0(21 March 2019), available at\u00a0www.elwatan.com\/.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. In all these ways, Arab Mediterranean women have expressed individual and especially collective agency. It is precisely such collective agency, which often has included coalitions with other civil society actors as well as with allies in political parties, that has resulted in the passage of new laws and policies for women\u2019s participation and rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The study of Arab Mediterranean women\u2019s presence in the formal political process is relatively new. The aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings gave impetus to this new line of inquiry, in part because the adoption of gender quotas \u2013 a key demand of women\u2019s rights organizations, bolstered by the UN\u2019s global women\u2019s rights agenda \u2013 led to dramatic increases in women\u2019s parliamentary presence. Although the appointment of women in cabinet positions predates the Arab Spring (e.g., women cabinet ministers in Algeria, Jordan, and Morocco), women\u2019s parliamentary representation was very low. Whereas Algeria\u2019s 2007 elections rendered a 7.7% female share, the 2012 gender quota increased it to 31.6%, although by 2019 this had declined to 26 percent. Morocco\u2019s female share was 10.5% in 2010, 17% in 2012, and 20.5% in 2019. (Moroccan political parties had introduced informal gender quotas in 2002, replaced in 2011 by the formal quota.) Tunisia, which had adopted an informal quota in 2004, had started from a higher base \u2013 a 27.6% female share in 2009 which remained steady until the big jump to 36% in the 2014 parliamentary elections. Other Arab Mediterranean countries trail behind the three Maghreb countries in the proportion of women members of parliament (MPs): Jordan and Egypt 15%, Libya 16%, Syria 13%, and Lebanon 4.7 percent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be noted that the Maghreb figures exceed those of Greece and Cyprus (18-19%), Turkey (17%), and Malta (12%). Tunisia\u2019s 36% parliamentary female share is tied with that of Italy and Portugal, and it is higher than Israel\u2019s 29 percent. (This compares to a 25% world average of women MPs.) [7]<\/a>7 \u2014 All data from the Interparliamentary Union, Available online.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. What Morocco, Tunisia and, to a lesser degree Algeria, share are close ties between women\u2019s rights advocates in civil society and those in the political parties and government; such synergies have helped raise the legal status and social positions of women and secured important legal and policy reforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tunisia is in many ways a unique case, as it began with a higher level of female political representation even before democratization, and it adopted a gender parity clause in the 2014 constitution: women were intensely involved in the constitutional process<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n A study of women MPs\u2019 involvement in legislative committees [8]<\/a>8 \u2014 Shalaby, Marwa and Laila\u00a0Elimam.\u00a02017.\u00a0\u201cWomen in Legislative Committees in Arab Parliaments.\u201d\u00a0Carnegie\u00a0Sada\u00a0Middle East Analysis\u00a0(April 26), Available online. \u00a0\n<\/span><\/span> classified the committees as \u201cpower\u201d, \u201ceconomic and foreign affairs\u201d, \u201csocial issues\u201d, and \u201cwomen\u2019s issues\u201d, and found that whereas Tunisian women MPs\u2019 committee distribution was more representative of their overall representation, the women MPs in Algeria and Morocco were overrepresented in the \u201csocial issues\u201d committees. They concluded that women\u2019s political tenure and expertise as well as the duration of quota systems are salient factors in determining women\u2019s substantive representation and membership in influential legislative committees [9]<\/a>9 \u2014 It is worth noting that women\u2019s concentration in \u201csocial issues\u201d mirrors the worldwide concentration of female cabinet ministers in the portfolios of Social Affairs; Family\/Children\/Youth\/Elderly\/Disabled; Environment\/Natural Resources\/Energy; Employment\/Labor\/Vocational Training. See UN Women, \u201cWomen in Politics 2019\u201d (map), Available online. \u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tunisia is in many ways a unique case, as it began with a higher level of female political representation even before democratization, and it adopted a gender parity clause in the 2014 constitution. Women were intensely involved in the constitutional process, including as members of the Constituent Assembly and in its leadership [10]<\/a>10 \u2014 International\u00a0IDEA. 2019.\u00a0Women Constitution-Makers: Comparative Experiences with Representation,\u00a0Participation\u00a0and Influence.\u00a0\u00a0Stockholm:\u00a0International IDEA.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. Tunisia also saw impressive increases in women\u2019s presence in local elections; indeed, the current female share of local governance seats is twice the global average. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n As seen in Table 1, of the nine Arab Mediterranean countries examined in this paper, all have quotas at the local as well as national levels except for Lebanon and Syria. Tunisia does best on women\u2019s representation in both national and local governance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to a UN report on achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, in 103 countries and areas with relevant data, women’s representation in elected local deliberative bodies varied from less than one percent to close to parity (50 percent), with a median of 26 percent. Women\u2019s representation in local government is 40% or higher in only 15 countries and areas; Tunisia is among that elite group, and in 2018 Tunisian women\u2019s share of local council seats was 48.5 percent, compared with the MENA average of 17.7 percent [11]<\/a>11 \u2014 See this website.\n<\/span><\/span>. As at the national level, Tunisia even before 2011 was \u2015as noted\u2015 ahead of other countries at the local level, and women held about 27% of municipal seats. As I have argued elsewhere [12]<\/a>12 \u2014 Moghadam, 2018. \u201cExplaining Divergent Outcomes of the Arab Spring: The Significance of Gender and Women\u2019s Mobilizations.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Politics, Groups, and Identities,\u00a06\u00a0(4). First on-line 31 Jan. 2017, Available online.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>, Tunisian women\u2019s public presence prior to the Arab Spring uprisings helped protect and indeed expand their participation, rights, and leadership afterwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Studies show that where legislated gender quotas are adopted, significantly higher proportions of women are elected at both national and local levels<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Studies show that where legislated gender quotas are adopted, significantly higher proportions of women are elected at both national and local levels [13]<\/a>13 \u2014 UN 2019, p. 26\n<\/span><\/span>. As of 2020, the quotas for women at the subnational level in the Arab Mediterranean states are: 30-35% in Algeria; 30% in Morocco and Jordan; 25% in Egypt; and 20% in Palestine. In Tunisia, Law 7 of 2017, amending the 2014 electoral law, stipulates gender parity at the subnational\/municipal level. Until 2007 Algerian women comprised just 8.2% of representatives in local councils, but this jumped to 17.6% in the most recent year. (See Table 1.) In Morocco in 2003, just 0.5% of elected municipal representatives were women; today, after implementing a quota, women account for 21% of local councilors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Quotas, therefore, matter as pathways to Arab Mediterranean women\u2019s political representation and to societal change. In turn, rising educational attainment, civil society engagement, and work experience across occupations and professions have broadened the pool of women available for public office. By 2010, Algerian women constituted 38 percent, and Tunisian women 42 percent, of university teaching staff. The field of law has seen a large presence of women, with women lawyers as key figures in legal reform in Algeria, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia. Women journalists, film directors, authors, and bloggers have increased women\u2019s public visibility. A key indicator of changes in gender relations is the presence of women judges, given that orthodox interpretations of Sharia law prevent women from serving as judges, and the testimony of two women is equal to that of one man. In Algeria in 2010, 37% of all judges were women; in Morocco, the figure was 24% and in Tunisia 28 percent. About half of Tunisia\u2019s constitutional court was female in 2010 [14]<\/a>14 \u2014 OECD and CAWTAR. 2012.\u00a0Women in Public Life: Gender, Law, and Policy in the Middle East and North Africa.\u00a0MENA OECD Governance Project in cooperation with CAWTAR, Tunis. Paris: OECD\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>, and in 2012 a woman served as president of an Administrative Court. In Morocco, female representation on the high court increased from 23% in 2004 to 26% in 2010. As a result of Morocco\u2019s 2011 constitutional amendments and Article 111 permitting judges to form independent associations, women jurists formed l\u2019Association marocaine des femmes juges; one priority is to \u201cpromote a culture of gender equality and equal opportunities.\u201d By 2018, 42% of judges in Algeria, 23.5% in Morocco, and 43% in Tunisia were women [15]<\/a>15 \u2014 ESCWA.\u00a02018.\u00a0\u201cWomen in the Judiciary: A\u00a0Stepping Stone\u00a0towards Gender Justice.\u201d Beirut: United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA).\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenges remain, however, in terms of both conversative attitudes and values and the limited employment opportunities for different classes of women. Both the World Values Survey (waves 6 and 7) and the Arab Barometer find that a large majority of citizens \u2013 in the order of 70 percent \u2013 agree or strongly agree that men make better political leaders. Women\u2019s agreement is somewhat less but still high (about 60%). Wave 6 of the WVS took place between 2010 and 2014, and Wave 7 between 2017 and 2020. Egypt and Jordan, included in both waves, remain very conservative regarding women and men as political leaders. In contrast, the change in Tunisia is impressive, showing the difference that women\u2019s political representation can make. Whereas during Wave 6 fully 72.5% of men and 61% of women agreed that men make better political leaders, Wave 7 shows those figures dropping to 57.7% male and 48.4% female agreement [16]<\/a>16 \u2014 Author analysis of WVS results for questions V51 (Wave 6) and\u00a0Q29 (Wave 7).\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. Attitudes are least conservative in Morocco and Lebanon. In Wave 6, just 51% of Lebanese women respondents agreed that men made better political leaders; in Morocco it was a mere 45 percent. In wave 7, the figures for Lebanon are even more striking: just 46% male agreement and 36% female agreement that men make better political leaders. (Morocco was not surveyed in Wave 7.) Given that Lebanon has not adopted a gender quota and has insignificant female parliamentary, ministerial, and local representation (see Table 1), such values are likely due to high dissatisfaction with the male-run confessional system, as well as the presence of a sizable Christian and liberal population of citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Arab Barometer Wave V findings align with those of the WVS. Although most Arab citizens find it acceptable to have a female president or prime minister, only Tunisia, Lebanon, and especially Morocco show relatively egalitarian attitudes on women\u2019s political leadership. Indeed, just 46% of Moroccan men and a mere 25% of women agree that men make better political leaders. Algerians, however, are far more in favor of male political leaders \u2015surely a counter-intuitive finding, given the dissatisfaction with the male-dominated le pouvoir<\/em> and the mass protests of 2019. As with the WVS, the Arab Barometer finds entrenched conservative views among Jordanians and especially Egyptians [17]<\/a>17 \u2014 Author analysis of Arab Barometer surveys. See also this.\n<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although most Arab citizens find it acceptable to have a female president or prime minister, only Tunisia, Lebanon, and especially Morocco show relatively egalitarian attitudes on women\u2019s political leadership<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n At the same time, only a minority of Arab Mediterranean women are interested in politics, on the order of 21-24 percent, with the lowest rates in Egypt and Algeria (12-13%). One reason may have to do with the disappointing record of politicians across the countries, especially on economic and employment issues. (Male interest in politics is similarly low, though higher than women\u2019s, according to the 2018-19 Arab Barometer findings.) Another may be that the impressive increase in women\u2019s access to professional jobs pertains to a small fraction of the economically active female population, favoring the highly educated and women from more liberal households. Women from less-educated, lower-income, and more conservative households are less likely to seek work, given insecure working conditions. Even so, the highest unemployment rates are among college-educated women, who seek jobs but face dwindling opportunities in both public and private sectors. The decline in tourism as well as foreign direct investment has only exacerbated the longstanding problem of youth and female unemployment. But women\u2019s low interest also may have to do with women\u2019s family responsibilities. Women\u2019s care work and domestic labor consume considerable time and energy, exacerbated by the absence of affordable and quality pre-school or childcare facilities [18]<\/a>18 \u2014 Karshenas, Massoud and Valentine M.\u00a0Moghadam. 2021.\u00a0\u201cFemale\u00a0Labour\u00a0Force Participation and Women\u2019s Employment: Puzzles, Problems, and Research.\u201d\u00a0In Hassan\u00a0Hakimian\u00a0(ed.),\u00a0The Routledge Handbook of Middle East Economics.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Finally, conflict and instability in parts of the Arab Mediterranean region impede women\u2019s political participations by increasing the risks of their public presence; Libya is clearly an example (e.g., the killings of prominent women activists after 2011). The Syrian conflict and forced internal displacement as well as out-migration have set back any advances that women had made, while also creating vast numbers of women and girls in vulnerable, precarious, and risky situations. Still, a positive sign is that in 2019, \u201cthe Syrian Government and opposition groups agreed to establish a Constitutional Committee to begin working on constitutional reform. Women are represented in both the Constitutional Committee and drafting Committee due, in large part, to international intervention as part of the internationally mediated peace process.\u201d [19]<\/a>19 \u2014 International\u00a0IDEA. 2019.\u00a0Women Constitution-Makers: Comparative Experiences with Representation,\u00a0Participation\u00a0and Influence.\u00a0\u00a0Stockholm:\u00a0International IDEA.\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty-five years after the Barcelona Process, the regional cooperation that could mitigate the economic and employment problems plaguing the Arab Mediterranean countries has yet to be realized, especially given the growth of right-wing populist parties and governments in Europe [20]<\/a>20 \u2014 Woertz, Eckart\u00a0and\u00a0Eduard Soler i\u00a0Lecha.\u00a02020.\u00a0\u201cPopulism and\u00a0EuroMediterranean\u00a0cooperation: The Barcelona Process 25 years after.\u201d\u00a0Mediterranean Politics, DOI: 10.1080\/13629395.2020.1799165\u00a0\n<\/span><\/span>. Support for democracy remains high in Arab Mediterranean countries, especially among those countries with Islamist political parties in government, but such support is not necessarily stable in the face of physical and economic insecurity [21]<\/a>21 \u2014 Cammett,\u00a0Melani,\u00a0Ishac\u00a0Diwan, and Irina\u00a0Vartanova. 2020. \u201cInsecurity and political values in the Arab world.\u201d\u00a0Democratization,\u00a027(5): 699-716.\n<\/span><\/span>. These realities have implications for Arab Mediterranean women\u2019s agency and empowerment. The Arab Spring uprisings have seen limited progress in the quality and legitimacy of state institutions, public services, and the private sector, suggesting the need for new forms of governance inclusive of women\u2019s knowledge and capacity. Also needed is increased interaction, coordination, and collaborations between women\u2019s rights organizations and the women\u2019s parliamentary caucuses within countries, across borders, and between the Arab and European Mediterranean partners. Cross-border synergies could serve the dual purpose of enhancing women\u2019s political presence and power and improving regional peace, women\u2019s security, and progress for all citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\nArab Mediterranean Women in Institutional Politics<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Local governance<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Women\u2019s Agency: Enabling Factors and Challenges <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions and Recommendations<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nTable 1. Political Systems, Electoral Quotas, and Women\u2019s Representation, Arab Mediterranean Countries (circa 2020)<\/h5>\n\n\n\n