How Southern is Tunisia? Gender Equality in Tunisian Constitutionalism

Abstract

Tunisia can be considered as a recent example for gendered constitutionalism in the Global South. In 2014, the country adopted a new constitution in the context of the so-called Arab Spring and enshrined far-reaching women's rights in it. With the enactment of the newest Constitution in august 2022, Tunisia is in a process of rupture with the previous constitutional order. In terms of gender equality, the Constitution of 2022 largely takes over the provisions from the previous constitution of 2014. However, the concrete political context is likely to be less favourable to gender equality. The Tunisian constitutional experience has the potential to widen the global gendered constitutional conversation while not disregarding seemingly typical southern aspects. One southern aspect is certainly that the Tunisian experience of gendered constitutionalism has so far received too little attention. The historical perspective shows that the so-called women's question recurs again and again as a strategy for identity, power and state-building. The struggle for gender equality is specific, a struggle à la tunisienne, so to speak, but it is embedded in the overarching historical (colonial) and regional context. This applies, for example, to the role of Islam in the legal and constitutional order - as a possible restriction of gender equality, but also as an expression of religious freedom or as an identarian aspect. These aspects might be rather southern. Nevertheless, religious arguments and patriarchal nationalisms are possible limitations to gender equality globally. The Tunisian case shows that female participation in constitutional processes and a gendered constitutional history are important factors for gender equality. The adopted constitutional arrangements can promote gender equality. However - and this is not a Global South specificity - the decisive factor is their implementation; social, economic and democratic factors are of paramount importance. The new Tunisian constitution of 2022 illustrates this impressively.