{"id":233925,"date":"2022-08-11T20:36:46","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T18:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/bourguiba-did-a-lot-for-tunisian-women-but-was-he-their-emancipator\/"},"modified":"2022-08-11T20:36:46","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T18:36:46","slug":"bourguiba-did-a-lot-for-tunisian-women-but-was-he-their-emancipator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/bourguiba-did-a-lot-for-tunisian-women-but-was-he-their-emancipator\/","title":{"rendered":"Bourguiba did a lot for Tunisian women. But was he their emancipator?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Tunisia\u2019s National Women\u2019s Day<\/a> is often associated with Habib Bourguiba<\/a>, the country\u2019s first president, who pursued the policy of state feminism. Bourguiba ruled the country for 30 years after its independence from France in 1957. In 1987 he was ousted in a coup d\u2019etat by Zine El Abedine Ben Ali<\/a>. Bourguiba\u2019s state feminist policies earned him the moniker<\/a> of the emancipator and liberator of Tunisian women. <\/p>\n

But was he really their emancipator? <\/p>\n

Like most Tunisian women, I grew up thinking this idea was true because this was the message the Tunisian educational system and media had communicated. When I started researching the history of the Tunisian feminist movement, however, I discovered that the reality was much more complex.<\/p>\n

Bourguiba\u2019s state feminism<\/h2>\n

State feminism refers to the government\u2019s adoption of policies that foster women\u2019s rights and improve women\u2019s lives. Bourguiba was the pioneer of state feminism<\/a> in Tunisia. He used his powers to pass reforms that vastly improved women\u2019s legal status. <\/p>\n

These reforms were imposed from the top down and promoted women\u2019s rights in a number of areas. <\/p>\n

A few months after the country\u2019s independence from France, Bourguiba instated the Personal Status Code. This granted women unprecedented liberties and social autonomy. It eliminated men\u2019s practice of immediate divorce and provided equal divorce rights for women and men. Women\u2019s consent became required for marriage. The right of a guardian<\/a> to marry off a woman without her permission was abolished. Polygamy was also outlawed. <\/p>\n

As a result of these changes, the labels<\/a> \u201cthe father of feminism\u201d and \u201cTunisian women\u2019s liberator\u201d were given to Bourguiba. The labels reflected the paternalistic and patriarchal aspect of the Bourguibist feminist policies. They also mirrored the state\u2019s monopolisation of the feminist cause. <\/p>\n

In reality, Bourguiba deliberately marginalised Tunisia\u2019s autonomous feminism. Different women\u2019s unions appeared in the pre-independence period. Yet, after independence, Bourguiba opposed, marginalised and dissolved<\/a> them. He outlawed their activities in the name of \u201cnational unity\u201d and replaced<\/a> them with the National Union of Tunisian Women in 1958. <\/p>\n

The result, according to Tunisian researcher Chouaib Elhajjaji, was that<\/a> he killed the grassroots movement and turned it into a government sponsored one.<\/p>\n

Bourguiba co-opted women\u2019s rights by linking the National Union of Tunisian Women to his Socialist Destourian Party<\/a>. He transformed the Women\u2019s Union into a tool for his state feminism. <\/p>\n

The result was an ambiguous policy. It presented<\/a> itself as freeing and modernising, while maintaining a level of conservatism. This is what explains<\/a> Bourguiba\u2019s reinforcement of women\u2019s traditional roles as wives, mothers and guardians of Islamic tradition in his speeches, despite his revolutionary ideas.<\/p>\n

Co-opting women\u2019s rights served his nationalist agenda, but not the feminist cause. The women\u2019s union could not criticise the state\u2019s gender politics. <\/p>\n

My reading at Tunisia\u2019s National Archives allowed me to notice the constant praise of Bourguiba in the publications of the Tunisian Women\u2019s Union, particularly its journal Femme (Woman). The journal refers to Bourguiba repeatedly as the emancipator of Tunisian women. Indeed, the fact that he appointed the union\u2019s first president, Radhia Haddad<\/a>, reflects his hegemony over this female organisation.<\/p>\n

Haddad herself would later criticise<\/a> the lack of freedom of expression and association. Other feminist activists, like Amal Ben Aba and Zeineb Cherni<\/a>, also joined in denouncing the state\u2019s hold on feminism<\/a>. The state cracked down on them.<\/p>\n

This created a need for an independent form of activism capable of acting outside the state agenda. As a result, an autonomous feminist movement<\/a> emerged in Tunisia in the 1980s. <\/p>\n

Independent feminism<\/h2>\n

The independent groups signalled their divergence from the government\u2019s official \u201cfeminist\u201d structures. They allied themselves with opposition parties because they saw a link between the fight against sexism and the fight against authoritarianism. <\/p>\n

Tunisian feminists chose to qualify their activism as \u201cautonomous\u201d to differentiate<\/a> it from the state\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n

For instance, in 1987, the Tahar Haddad cultural club<\/a> was founded as part of the push for independent voices. Its growth was challenged by Bourguiba\u2019s decision that only his women\u2019s union could operate. This hindered the actual political representation <\/a> of the autonomous women\u2019s movement. <\/p>\n

The Tunisian independent feminist movement wanted to end the patronage of Bourguiba over women\u2019s rights. Activist Sana Ben Achour illustrates this in her comment<\/a> on the determination of the independent feminists who founded the Tahar Haddad Club to achieve their goals in spite of Bourguiba:<\/p>\n

\n

Our relationship {with the National Union of Tunisian Women} was conflictual because the Tunisian feminist movement was born out of the will to break with tutelage, more particularly with the father figure, the figure of Bourguiba \u2026 We no longer wanted to hear the discourse, which made Bourguiba know what was best for us, women.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ben Achour throws light on the important problem of Bourguiba\u2019s appropriation of achievements made in the women\u2019s rights arena. This centralises the father cult. It also erases the role that Tunisian women\u2019s rights activists played in advancing women\u2019s rights. The most notorious example of this erasure is the Personal Status Code, which was celebrated as Bourguiba\u2019s achievement. <\/p>\n

As Elhajjaji<\/a> explains, this has resulted in<\/p>\n

\n

ignoring the female activists who fought for these laws. School history books rarely mention names such as Bchira Ben Mrad<\/a>, Radhia Haddad and Manoubia Ouertani<\/a>, but instead, it\u2019s Bourguiba who is celebrated as the women\u2019s \u2018saviour\u2019 and \u2018liberator.\u2019 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Amira Mhadhbi<\/a>, who exposes the oppressive aspect of Bourguiba\u2019s state feminism, illustrates this further:<\/p>\n

\n

President Bourguiba was declared the \u2018liberator of Tunisian women.\u2019 \u2026 This initiated a culture of political patriarchy. By effectively outlawing other forms of political leadership, Bourguiba stalled the women\u2019s movement in its broader fight for autonomy from male authority.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The evidence presented so far reflects the limitations of Bourguiba\u2019s state feminism. It is undeniable that the state feminist policies he pursued have benefited Tunisian women and girls in multiple areas. But, if independent feminists were deliberately marginalised by this male figure, then can we continue to call him the emancipator of Tunisian women?<\/p>\n

Source: The Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tunisia\u2019s National Women\u2019s Day is often associated with Habib Bourguiba, the country\u2019s first president, who pursued the policy of state feminism. Bourguiba ruled the country for 30 years after its independence from France in 1957. In 1987 he was ousted in a coup d\u2019etat by Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. Bourguiba\u2019s state feminist policies earned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[3257],"class_list":{"0":"post-233925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa-news-2","8":"tag-mypr","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/bourguiba-did-a-lot-for-tunisian-women-but-was-he-their-emancipator.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}