In the article ” Tunisian women during the revolution“, We unpacked the decolonization of Tunisia and in particular the work of Bchira Ben Mrad. Even though the article was not enough to share the revolutionary impact of Bchira, her memory must be kept alive by refusing to not erase her from Tunisia’s independence and the overall acclaimed liberation of women. After humiliating Bchira and removing her from the political scene, Habib Bourguiba centered himself as the pioneer for women’s rights in Tunisia. He installed state feminism rooted in political patriarchy and his agenda. In this article, we look closely at the evolution of women’s rights in Tunisia.
Habib Bourguiba and the Culture of Political patriarchy( 1957-1987)
With the French protectorate dissolved in 1956, Habib Bourguiba came to power as the new nation’s president. An autocrat known for decades of human rights abuses, Bourguiba was the pioneer of what many in Tunisia recognize as ‘state feminism. Stating that “all citizens hold the same rights and have the same duties, that they are all equal before the law”; the 1959 Tunisian Constitution was also a milestone in recognizing women as equals before the law.
Mere months after independence, Bourguiba instated the Code of Personal Status (CPS), a body of family law that granted women unprecedented liberties. Women were granted the right to divorce and greater rights in the realms of marriage: child custody, and social autonomy. Consent became required for women to marry, repudiation was replaced by judicial divorce accessible to men and women, and polygamy was outlawed. CPS gave women the right to choose their spouse (abolishing the right of a guardian to give a woman in marriage without her consent), set the minimum age for marriage for women at 15 years then subsequent revisions of 1964 and 2007 increased it to 17 then 18, eliminated the practice of immediate divorce by men (repudiation) and provided equal divorce rights to men and women. The changes brought by the reinstatement of the CPS were welcomed by many as they did not directly contradict or antagonize conservative Islamists. CPS was described as “a civil code of Islamic inspiration, taking into consideration the need to reconcile respect for the Islamic religion with the imperatives of modern life,”
To reverse the pro-natalist policy established by the French, Bourguiba’s government in the 1950s began establishing a national family planning program that was integrated into the 1962-63 national development plan and made operational by the creation of a family planning agency (ONPF) in the early 1960s. The program was further accompanied by further investment in reproductive health and the enactment of social policy reforms to discourage large families such as limiting security benefits to a maximum of three children, and with the revocation of laws about importing and selling contraceptives in 1961 and the legalization of abortion in 1973, making Tunisia, the first African country to grant full reproductive rights to women. These policies gave women greater control over decisions about whether and when to have children and expand their life choices in the private sphere . They also enhanced women’s freedom and capacity to make their own choices about marriage and motherhood and contributed to women’s economic, political and social empowerment more broadly. Due to the reforms, lower fertility was achieved and this meant women dedicated less time to bringing up children and was associated with higher levels of literacy rates, a substantial increase in female school enrollment, particularly at the tertiary level which increases women’s and access to paid employment.
In the immediate post-independence era, a key priority of Bourguiba’s government was the creation of a skilled labor to meet the needs of urban businesses and to support the country’s manufacturing industry thus the Tunisian government’s heavy investment in the public education system (primary and secondary school) and passing the legislation on improving all children’s access to education, universalizing education in 1958. Since 1971, girls’ enrollment at all levels of education increased steadily reaching 108% for primary enrollment.
Even though gender equality was officially promoted through governmental channels and women enjoyed the rights they obtained with the CSP, their freedom was neither full nor equal as their potential for independent action remained very limited. Traditional patriarchal structures continued to discourage women from obtaining articulated equality. During Bourguiba’s leadership, women remained underrepresented in public life. Women predominantly worked in lower positions with their presence within senior levels only serving symbolic purposes and constituted the minority in decision-making positions with the majority of women in the government belonging to the official state party and possessing only restricted roles and with limited impact on decision-making. Also, the social construct perceiving the public space as the proper domain for men and the private space as the proper domain for women continuously undermined women’s inclusion in political decision-making.
The only women’s organization acknowledged under Bourguiba’s rule was the Union Nationale de la Femme Tunisienne (UNFT) which was sponsored and controlled by the state and served the mere symbolic purpose of a state benevolent towards women’s rights as it neither participated in the promotion of the family laws, took part in the legislative process nor was able to form associations or publicly express their opinion. This resulted in the ideology of ‘state feminism’ which did not allow for independent women’s activism. When organizations like the Tahar Haddad Club: Club of Women’s Conditions Studies (CECF), the Women’s Union Commission and the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) were formed, they were considered to be in opposition to the National Union of Tunisian Women (UNFT) – the ‘social wing’ of the ruling party and received no government support nor recognition. Many feminists were arrested, blacklisted by the state for challenging Bourguiba’s women empowerment’s ideologies.
Feminist historians argue that while the CPS and consequent reforms were monumental, many of the state’s policies were the first steps taken by a post-colonial government on a path to neoliberalism. The fruits of these reforms were also too few; rarely did the poorest and most vulnerable benefit from them. But the state propaganda machine had long taken off. The statement of the CPS cemented Bourguiba’s position as ‘the savior of Tunisian women’ in the public eye and initiated a culture of political patriarchy. Discourse on policies and rights were platformed only when spearheaded by women affiliated to the Neo-Destour party (Bourguiba’s.) By monopolizing the discourse on women’s rights, Bourguiba stalled the creation of organic and mass-based women’s movements.
Ben Ali:
During the night of 6 November 1987, a group of seven doctors signed a medical report attesting to the mental incapacity of Bourguiba and that he was no longer acting or thinking rationally. After seeing the report, Prime Minister Ben Ali invoked Article 57 as he assumed power. He rapidly emerged, therefore, not merely as the constitutional president, but also as the commander in chief of the arm.
,When Ben Ali came to power, he upheld Bourguiba’s ideology of state feminism and there was a growth of women’s organizations. Due to affiliation with the regime and operating in close observation within a bureaucratic system, most of these organizations lacked autonomy and focused on non-political issues, thus their minimal ability to impact change on women’s status. When looking at the regime affiliation of these organizations and their inaction, it becomes obvious that Ben Ali’s administration was not interested in improving women’s rights. Therefore, the organizations served the purpose of public relations presenting the Tunisian state and civil society as being progressive towards women’s rights
Women’s status remained a signifier of modernity and the contrast between the incumbent regime vis-à-vis the then rising Islamist movement whose repression would gain the Tunisian Government Western support and funding. Under Ben Ali, the UNFT ( Union Nationale de la Femme Tunisienne) continued to be the government’s social wing. State-sponsored women’s organizations, usually headed by members or affiliates of the ruling party RCD, proliferated and were depicted as the choice outlets for Tunisian women. Meanwhile, Leila Ben Ali, Tunisia’s unpopular first lady, was presented to the world as the model Tunisian independent woman.
The rising Islamist movement had coalesced from tensions that preceded Ben Ali; the polarization between secular liberalists and the Islamists became visible during the 1980s and characterized a broader debate on political, economic, legal and social policies. The debate was framed within opposing visions that pitted the Western model of ‘liberation’ against a conservative one rooted in Islamic fundamentalism; the issue of women’s rights became a terrain on which these tensions played out. Under Bourguiba, repression and trials of several Islamist activists were rampant and the ideological gap had widened. Islamists would charge women’s rights activists of being Western pawns, implementing imperialist agendas and lacking the religious knowledge to speak on the Tunisian context. Opposed to the liberal reforms of Bourguiba and consequently Ben Ali’s regimes, the fundamentalists campaigned against secularization and perceived westernization. Women were on both sides of this debate and Islamic feminists emerged who rejected the secularization that was popular at the time and argued for women’s rights within the framework of Islam. On the other hand, secular feminist writers, activists, and organizations resisted the rising wave of conservatism in their writing and organizing. Works were published addressing the claims of the fundamentalists; Azza Ghanmi wrote on how the feminist reform in Tunisia suspected of westernization and secularism was rarely applied without undergoing negotiation with the Tunisian context and the basic tenets of Islam. In 1999, Ilhem Marzouki wrote on the disconnect between the prominent women’s organizations of the day and the base of women they sought to speak for. This disconnect, she said, lay at the heart of the organizations’ inability to accurately address the issues and antagonism raised by religious fundamentalists.
In 1989, when the Ben Ali’s regime needed allies in the struggle against the Islamist opposition and representatives for international allies, two independent women’s organizations; the Association Tunisienne des Femmes Démocrates (ATFD) also called Femmes Démocrates and the Association des Femmes Tunisiennes pour la Recherche et le Développement (AFTRD) were founded and legalized. With their objective of investigating ways in which Tunisian women can be part of the development process and participate to their full potential as activists and citizens, AFTRD attracted elite professionals from various fields as members. The ATFD, originally a network of women organized under Bourguiba as “Club d’Etudes de la Condition des Femmes”, or “Club Tahar Haddad” acted by questioning the status of women and openly challenging the refusal of Tunisian left’s men to recognize the validity of women’s oppression. Self-identifying itself as a feminist organization, ATFD created Centre d’Ecoute which assisted victims of violence.
Both ATFD and AFTRD remained the only significant associations formed and allowed to operate during Ben Ali’s rule that focused on women’s rights. However, Ben Ali’s permission for these autonomous women’s associations to work came with limitations and restrictions. Their action of working effectively towards their objective of women’s empowerment made them veritable threats to the regime and so they were repressed. Surveillance and censorship that undermined and suppressed any voices contradicting the regime, operating within a political space heavily occupied by state-sponsored and regime-affiliated women’s organizations, all created to a hostile environment that limited the potential of action for both organizations. Khadija Cherif, a long-time feminist activist, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and former president of the Association Tunisienne des femmes démocrates (ATFD) is one who suffered from the state discrimination when she spent time under house arrest for her activism in autonomous women’s rights organizations.
With the rise of fundamentalism and Ben Ali’s instrumentalization of women’s rights, feminists were caught between a rock and a hard place regardless of their position. In an attempt to fight religious patriarchy or a secularization they disagreed with, they were often pushed into alliances with groups that did not always have their best interests at heart. While secular feminists became tied to a government that sought to utilize their support to secure western military + financial resources, Islamic feminists were allied with conservative and misogynistic groups interested in walking back women’s rights. Women activists who were independent of the government also faced harassment and vilification for their criticisms of the regime. And, as has been revealed by recent testimony collected by the country’s Truth and Dignity Commission, women associated with the Islamist movement were subjected to rape, torture and forced divorce while under detention at the hands of Ben Ali’s government. The average (rural) woman in Tunisia would not have access to whatever liberal reforms and laws enacted by the central government and many women to this day remain uninformed of their rights and liberties.
As Ben Ali’s corruption and repression intensified, it culminated in the civil disobedience that ousted him in 2011. Women were on the front lines of change: protesting alongside men, blogging passionately and prolifically, covering the demonstrations as journalists and newscasters, leading public demonstrations, and launching social media campaigns…
In the next post, we will cover the Jasmine Revolution: a sense of hopelessness that Tunisians shared in the face of injustice and abuse by Ben Ali’s regime. It culminated into a nation-wide rage against the regime and turned into a collective sense of unity in suffering and oppression which also later turned into a general sentiment of fearlessness.
Until next time, stay informed !