Moroccan Feminist Discourses

This book is both scholarly and personal. It is scholarly because it addresses and assesses the current Moroccan feminist discourses, a topic the author has been involved with for almost three decades, and it is personal because it brings along her Berber identity and seeks to reposition it vis-a-vis these feminist discourses. Revisiting the Moroccan feminist discourses in the aftermath of the uprisings in the region which, among other things, brought about the spectacular change in the political status of Berber from an indigenous centuries-long marginalized language to an 'official language' of Morocco came with serious challenges to the feminist discourses by highlighting the stark absence of Berber, a women-related language, in these discourses. The two recognized types of feminist discourse, the secular and Islamic ones, are not only divergent but suffer from a shortage in scope and discard the rich heritage, knowledge, and art that Berber women bring along to the Moroccan feminist discourses.

Fatima Sadiqi is Professor of Linguistics and Gender Studies and Founder of the Center for Studies and Research on Women at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Morocco. She is the author of Women, Gender, and Language in Morocco and the editor of Women and Knowledge in the Mediterranean, Women in the Middle East and North Africa: Agents of Change, and Women Writing Africa.