Post-2011 Pressures for Expanded Female Citizenship and Family Law Reform in Mena: Theorizing on Change amidst Political Transition

Abstract

Seen from the perspective of female citizenship in MENA, three observations can be tentatively drawn two years after the 2011 Arab uprisings. First, the upsurge of Islamist political leverage has made its toll in representative organizations (political parties) as well as institutions (parliaments). Second, the political cleavage between adversaries of secularist and non-secularist ideological visions pertaining to the organization and distribution of power within the state has widened in terms of topics addressed, and deepened in terms of voting fallouts. A rough two-third/one-third divide is most clearly evidenced in Egypt, but equally apparent in Tunisia, Morocco, and Jordan where turmoil has been primarily non-violent. Third, basic female civil rights buttressed in 1956 in Tunisia upon independence, and secured through parliamentary reforms after 2000 in Egypt and Morocco, are subject to political contestation. As a result, conservative doctrines of domesticated womanhood are enmeshed in current political agendas of reform.