Women have been central to the events that have shaken Tunisian politics since the Arab Spring. This article addresses how Tunisia came to occupy a premier position in regard to women's rights and discusses some of the current debates on women's rights in Tunisia following the Arab Spring.
Gender has come to demarcate battle lines in geopolitical struggles since Sept. 11, 2001, and to occupy a central place in the discourse of international relations in regard to Muslim countries. This article offers a critical analysis of the scholarship on issues that constitute the core of the intellectual discourse on gender in the Middle East.
Starting in the 1950s and ever since, Tunisia has implemented gender legislation expanding women's rights in family law. This article documents the two major phases of reforms in favor of women's rights in Tunisia and outlines the conditions that permitted or encouraged the continuity over the last half century.
The authors in this special issue discuss how women's voices are excluded, silenced and marginalized in settings and processes such as war, displacement, democratization, labor market, judicial system, state bureaucracy, nonprofit organizations and national debates on citizenship. They also discover how women found their voices, channeled them, modified them, and gained a measure of empowerment.
The lower participation of women in the paid labor force in the Muslim Middle East relative to other world regions raises the question: What is the culprit of gender inequality in the Muslim Middle East? Could it be Islam or is it something else?