The future of Tunisian women is a key issue in the elections – the first vote of the Arab spring. Tunisia's famously advanced women's rights are at the heart of secular nervousness over whether this open, liberal society will vote in huge numbers for the Islamist An-Nahda party, and whether that party, which says it is moderate and devoted to women's equality, could begin to chip away at women's status.
Tunisia, the only Arab country to ban polygamy, prides itself as the most feminist country in the region. In 1956, after independence from the French, women's rights were enshrined in law, banning multiple marriages and forced unilateral divorce. There is a minimum marriage age of 18 and rights for divorced women which are unprecedented in the Arab world. Women in headscarves rub shoulders with others in tight jeans and loose hair. More than 80% of adult females are literate, the contraception rate is high and women make up half the student population, a third of magistrates and a quarter of the diplomatic corps.
Tunisia's elections should be a great day for Arab women, but feminists are deeply anxious. Much-vaunted electoral rules on running equal numbers of men and women candidates have been downplayed by parties who suggest that in Tunisia's first ever free elections, voters simply "prefer" men to women candidates. This means the new assembly which will rewrite the constitution could be more than ever dominated by men.
Read the whole article in the Guardian, published 20 october
The future of Tunisian women is a key issue in the elections – the first vote of the Arab spring. Tunisia's famously advanced women's rights are at the heart of secular nervousness over whether this open, liberal society will vote in huge numbers for the Islamist An-Nahda party, and whether that party, which says it is moderate and devoted to women's equality, could begin to chip away at women's status.
Tunisia, the only Arab country to ban polygamy, prides itself as the most feminist country in the region. In 1956, after independence from the French, women's rights were enshrined in law, banning multiple marriages and forced unilateral divorce. There is a minimum marriage age of 18 and rights for divorced women which are unprecedented in the Arab world. Women in headscarves rub shoulders with others in tight jeans and loose hair. More than 80% of adult females are literate, the contraception rate is high and women make up half the student population, a third of magistrates and a quarter of the diplomatic corps.
Tunisia's elections should be a great day for Arab women, but feminists are deeply anxious. Much-vaunted electoral rules on running equal numbers of men and women candidates have been downplayed by parties who suggest that in Tunisia's first ever free elections, voters simply "prefer" men to women candidates. This means the new assembly which will rewrite the constitution could be more than ever dominated by men.
Read the whole article in the Guardian, published 20 october