Born of the political left, Moroccan feminism broke free
Like Egyptian feminism, Moroccan feminism was bound up with the movement aimed at achieving independence from the French coloniser. In 1937, Malika Al-Fassi[1] ranked among the first women joining the struggle against the protectorate. She ensured the liaison between the Palace and the nationalists, transcribing the documents the latter wished passed on to Sultan Mohamed V[2] . She is the only woman to have signed the January 1944 historical manifesto for independence that openly called for the end of colonisation. In 1946, she founded, within the Independence Party (Istiqlal), the association Akhawat al-Safa (Sisters of Purity) wherein women fought for girls' literacy and the legal emancipation of women. Upon the promulgation of the Moudawana, the Personal Status Code (1957-58), she denounced its fundamentally patriarchal nature and called for a reform founded in successoral equality and the abolition of polygamy. Morocco's first constitution of 1962, which admitted the principle of equality before the law of all its citizens be they male or female, nevertheless enshrined gender inequality as imposed by the Moudawana.
Arising from the left of Moroccan politics, Moroccan feminism organised within the women's section of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP). In 1975 its members demanded the revision of the Personal Status Code towards the recognition of equality between spouses in all their rights. This implied, to begin with, rescinding matrimonial guardianship, banning polygamy and replacing repudiation by divorce through the courts. However these demands were not taken up by the USFP parliamentary group for which women's issues were not a priority. Aware of being reined in by the political parties, historical Moroccan feminists broke free from them, choosing in the 80s, to channel their demands through civil society. The feminist struggle actually came into its own with broad associative movements such as the Association Démocratique des Femmes du Maroc in 1985, the Union pour l'Action Féminine in 1987, or the Association Féminine des Femmes Progressistes en 1992. Over and above the work towards women's literacy, this feminist militantism brought pressure to bear on the government to implement reforms consistent with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which Morocco ratified in 1993, arguing the precedence of international over internal norm.
With its “One Million Signatures” campaign the movement marked a historical milestone in the fight for the reform of the Personal Status Code; initiated by Latifa Jbaddi, founder and president of the Union de l'Action Féminine (UAF), it demanded equality between spouses, the abolition of matrimonial guardianship and the abolition of polygamy. The petition was addressed to the king, members of parliament and the major news agencies. It aimed to establish a double legitimacy: universal on the one hand, through the Human Rights and international conventions frame of reference, and religious on the other through the reference to scriptural texts read in an egalitarian mode. The petition faced a forceful opposition from Moroccan Islamist movements and a number of conservative theologians who promulgated a fatwa[3] accusing the authors of apostasy. These virulent condemnations notwithstanding, this petition was a landmark in the history of Moroccan feminism as it generated a societal debate and lead to public awareness of women's condition in Morocco.
In 1999, the introduction of the Plan d'action national pour l'intégration de la femme au développement (The Plan of Action for the Integration of Women in Development, or PAIWD), which included the egalitarian reforms of the Moudawana, brought into light two social forces in conflict over the question of women's place in Moroccan society, namely the pro-plan feminists upholding the principle of gender equality and the anti-plan Islamists championing the complementarity of the sexes. For the latter, such reforms represented a threat to their conception of “Islamic identity” for they shared with some traditionalist theologians the idea that women's individual rights as demanded by the feminists cannot accord with Islam's family values. Caught between both trends, the government finally came up with an “Islamic state feminism”.
The new Family Code adopted by the government 3 February 2004 lists several significant steps; besides increasing girls' marriageable age to 18, it endorses the abolition of matrimonial guardianship, the equality of men and women in rights and duties within the family (the spouses' joint responsibility) and the right for women to sue for divorce and have custody of the children. Yet, this new Moudawana is not wholly egalitarian: Polygamy and repudiation remain a man's rights, though restricted by the requirement of a judge's authorisation. The unequal division of inheritance has also been left unchanged. Beyond the difficulties met in implementing it, this new Family Code, distinctly more even-handed than its predecessor still marks a watershed in the improvement of Moroccan women's condition.
