Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
be difficult, let alone getting them to school. Around a quarter of Moroccans are judged to
live in near or absolute poverty, and suffer from food insecurity (living in fear of hunger).
Best-selling Moroccan author and academic Fatima Mernissi exposes telling diferences and
uncanny similarities in the ideals of women in Europe and the Middle East in
Scheherazade Goes
West: Different Cultures, Different Harems
.
Shifting Gender Roles
A decade or two ago, you might not have met Fatima or Amina. Most of the people you'd
see out and about, going to school, socialising and conducting business in Morocco would
have been men. Women were occupied with less high-profile work, such as animal hus-
bandry, farming, childcare, and fetching water and firewood.
As of 2004, Morocco's Mudawanna legal code guarantees women crucial rights with
regard to custody, divorce, property ownership and child support, among other protec-
tions. Positive social pressure has greatly reduced the once-common practice of hiring
girls under 14 years of age as domestic workers, and initiatives to eliminate female illiter-
acy are giving girls a better start in life. Women now represent nearly a third of Morocco's
formal workforce, forming their own industrial unions, agricultural cooperatives and artis-
ans' collectives.
The modern Moroccan woman's outlook extends far beyond her front door, and women
visitors will meet Moroccan women eager to chat, compare life experiences and share per-
spectives on world events. Male-female interactions are still somewhat stilted by social
convention - though you'll surely notice couples meeting in parks, at cafes and via web-
cam. Young Moroccan women are on the move, commuting to work on motor scooters,
taking over sidewalks on arm-in-arm evening strolls, and running for key government po-
sitions.
Nineteenth-century Swiss adventurer Isabelle Eberhardt dressed as a Berber man, became a
Sui, smoked kif, operated as a triple agent, married an Algerian dissident and wrote her mem-
oir
The Oblivion Seekers
- all before the age of 30.
