VALENTINE M.

MOGHADAM & FATIMA SADIQI 

1

WOMEN’S ACTIVISM AND

THE PUBLIC SPHERE:
An Introduction and Overview
Valentine M. Moghadam and Fatima Sadiqi



T he articles in this special issue were among those presented at a work-

shop we organized for the Sixth Mediterranean Social and Political
Research Meeting, which took place from 16‒20 March 2005, in Monte-
catini, Italy. The purpose of the workshop was to examine the proposition
that the public sphere in a number of MENA countries is changing and
civil society becoming “feminized” due to women’s greater social partici-
pation, the proliferation of women’s organizations, their involvement in
or initiation of public debates and national dialogues, and their access to
various forms of media. Twelve papers were submitted and presented at
the workshop, leading to a very lively discussion, but only a few could be
included in this special issue. The papers lay out the complexity of various
versions of women’s activism, their intricate relations with public space,
and how that plays out in contemporary political and legal debates. In
what remains, we provide a brief introduction to the guiding ideas and an
overview of the papers’ arguments and findings.
In Habermas’ conceptualization, the “public sphere” is a modern
institution and a set of values that brings private persons together in
public to engage in a context of reasoned debates (Habermas 1989). Civil
society—the non-state realm of associational life, civility in public dis-
course, and state-society relations—constitutes an important part of the

JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN’S STUDIES

Vol. 2, No. 2 (Spring 2006). © 2006

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public sphere of media and other forums of public opinion. As feminist

scholars have pointed out (Fraser 1996; Lister 1997), civil society and the
public sphere historically were cast as male, although women’s suffrage
and the women’s movement expanded, democratized, and feminized
these spheres in the course of the twentieth century.
The public sphere has been conceptualized largely in connection
with the single society and the nation-state, but processes of globaliza-
tion suggest the emergence of a “global space” within which reasoned
debates, associational activities, and collective action take place. This
is the impetus for the new literature on “global civil society” (Florini
2000), the “transnational public sphere” (Guidry, Kennedy, and Zald
1999), “transnational social movements” (Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco
1997), “transnational advocacy networks” (Keck and Sikkink 1998), and
“transnational feminist networks” (Moghadam 2005).
A burgeoning literature on civil society, citizenship, and democra-
tization has emerged in the context of Middle East Studies, in tandem
with a body of work by feminist scholars (Brynen, Korany, and Noble
1995, 1998; El-Sayyid 1994; Norton 1995; Arat 1994; Brand 1998; Botman
1999; Joseph 2000; Moghadam 2003; Sadiqi 2003). As an earlier
generation of feminist scholars noted for the West, the public sphere
of politics in MENA has been cast as male and distinguished from the
private sphere of women-and-the-family. Moreover, the state and the
market have been long regarded as masculine domains. Rights of the
citizen—limited for all in the authoritarian and neopatriarchal states
of MENA—have been differentiated by gender (and religion). It is this
state of affairs that is being contested by an emerging social and political
constituency—women—who are motivated by aspirations for equality
and enhanced rights and who also draw on international standards, con-
ventions, and networks in support of their claims. As a social movement,
women’s activism in the public sphere uses strategies that do not reproduce
Western frameworks but that feed into global synergy with their guiding
cultural worldviews. It is only through understandings of intercultural
worldviews and various meanings of “pragmatism” that MENA women’s
rights tactics can be appreciated globally (Sadiqi forthcoming).
The papers in this special issue explore the changing nature of
the public sphere in MENA and women’s contributions to it, as well as
women’s involvement in the transnational public sphere, through an

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examination of countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Jordan,

where these changes have been observed.
An examination of political developments over the past decade in
MENA countries leads to the formulation of the following propositions.
Proposition 1. The public sphere in a number of MENA countries
is being engendered and feminized because of the emergence of women
as political actors/agents and as an increasingly important political
constituency—as voters, as members of parliament and local councils,
as civil servants, as new “public intellectuals,” as participants in civil
society organizations (e.g., human rights organizations and professional
associations), and as heads of women’s organizations, associations, and
networks. As such, women are challenging the patriarchal underpinnings
of state and society and the monopoly of the state and of men over the
public sphere.
Proposition 2. Women’s strategic use of the media as a means of
access to the public sphere transforms and feminizes both. This includes
the print media, including the women’s press (e.g., women’s magazines
and newspapers, women’s studies journals, novels and poetry produced
by women, women-owned publishing houses) and films (the emergence
of women filmmakers, as well as the growing importance of women’s
issues in filmmaking). In addition, the participation of women in the
establishment media provides a voice and a platform for the dissemina-
tion of women’s issues.
Proposition 3. Women’s contributions and participation are leading
to the democratization of the public sphere and the formation of a mod-
ern civil society—in contradistinction to forms of clientelism, masculine
privilege, and “primordial associations” that have hitherto characterized
these domains (see Ibrahim 1992; Turner 2000). In Turkey, Tunisia,
Algeria, and Morocco, women’s rights activists see their movements and
organizations as both democratic and feminist, and they have widened
the discursive space through the language of liberalism, individualism
and autonomy, secularism, and Islamic feminism (Arat 1994; Sadiqi 1999,
2003; Moghadam 2003).
Proposition 4. Women’s roles in Shari’a law-changing and legal
reform evince an unprecedented form of women’s agency and insertion
in the public sphere. As women increasingly participate in public debates
around family law and their place in society, ideas and practices that have

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long been taken for granted and understood as Islamic are being confront-
ed and challenged. Such women’s participation helps to promote thinking
about Islam that is not limited to self-ascribed religious authorities.
In addition to the above propositions, several questions were pre-
sented to the workshop participants to guide their research:
(1) What are the different strategies—including discourses, forms
of collective action, and extent of coalition-building within and across
countries—pursued by the women’s movement and organizations in each
country?
(2) What is the relationship of the women’s movement to the state, and
what is the state’s position vis-à-vis women/feminists in the public sphere?
This will entail addressing the extent of “state feminism,” the efficacy of the
women’s official organizations, the question of Convention to End Discrimi-
nation Against Women (CEDAW), revisions of family law, etc.
(3) What has been the influence of women’s activism or “the woman
question” on the public discourse(s), for example, through the women’s
press and other media?
(4) What is the role or influence of global forces and developments
in creating new political spaces and a more inclusive public sphere in
MENA, particularly where women are concerned?
Local/global linkages are exemplified by developments in the Magh-
reb. Here, women’s activism in the public sphere has centred largely on
the family law around which other discourses of equality and individual
rights are expressed. This activism is perceived as a new form of resis-
tance to the various forms of patriarchal oppression. With the advent
of globalization, this struggle is no longer dictated by local concerns
only—it is also heavily influenced by international discourses. The recent
debate on the Moroccan Family Law showed that women’s organizations
were inserting themselves into the public sphere, changing the terms of
participation in this sphere, and making women and gender issues a mat-
ter of national dialogue and contention. Both national and international
discourses and connections had an impact on the debates, on the King’s
speech of 10 October 2003, and on the parliament’s passing of the bill.

OVERVIEW OF THE PAPERS

Michaelle Browers’ paper sets the stage by drawing attention to the

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marginalization of women, as well as women’s rights issues, from high-

level discussions. In examining the “Nationalist-Islamist Conferences”
that were convened between 1994 and 2004 by the Center for Arab Unity
Studies in Beirut, she shows that this particular corner of the Arab public
sphere has studiously avoided taking up gender issues. This is one clear
reason why women’s organizations have been so resolutely asserting
themselves in the public sphere.
Loubna Skalli then places the spotlight on women and informa-
tion technologies in the region. Although the use of the Internet is not
yet widespread and its potential has not been realized, Skalli elucidates
the influence of crusading journalists (e.g., Rana Husseini of Jordan),
feminist publishing houses, and documentary filmmaking on the pub-
lic sphere. In politics also, and as Abdelkader Cheref demonstrates, a
number of outstanding Algerian women leaders and dissidents have
been developing what can only be called a counter-hegemonic discourse.
Focusing on three feminist leaders, Cheref explores governmental and
societal attitudes toward them, as well as their place in the Algerian
feminist movement.
In their case study of Morocco, Fatima Sadiqi and Moha Ennaji
demonstrate the strategies of the women’s organizations in the struggle
for the Family Law reform and show how the “gradual reorganization of
space” paved the way for the visibility of women’s issues and the need for
legal reform. Finally, Carol Malt highlights the role that museums play
in the public sphere and the broader implications of the feminization of
museum employment. MENA women museum staff may yet realize the
potential powerful role they can play culturally.
Overall, the papers in this volume explore women’s contributions to
the changing nature of the public sphere in the MENA region. The local
linkages within particular countries exhibit both common patterns and
specific characteristics. The specificities stem from sociopolitical environ-
ments and events, along with domestic discourses that may be distinctive
to that place and time. Common patterns attest not only to the similari-
ties in family laws, Islamic norms, and patriarchal practices but also to
the salience of global influences and the relationship between women’s
movements in the MENA region and the global women’s rights agenda.
By gathering the papers in this volume, we hope to lay the ground-
work for more investigations into the broader significance of women’s

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activism in the MENA region, particularly with respect to civil society,

the public sphere, democratization, and transnational linkages. Feminist
activism is propelling non-state actors to the forefront of social change,
making them of inescapable relevance for governments and the global
system. The themes of the papers regarding public debates and knowl-
edge-production, the media, policymaking, legal change, and cultural in-
fluence attest to the impact women are having on the MENA public scene
and the influence they are having on public opinion. Civil society, in its
constituent diversity, is a key promoter of democratization. Its power is
not the authority to decide or to enforce. It is the capacity to argue, to
denounce, to propose, to experiment, and to innovate.

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