While being a fierce defender of gender equality, Moroccan sociologist and writer Fatema Mernissi (1940-2015) never liked being coined as feminist, in the western sense, nor reduced to an identity-bound category. Her battle was multi-layered, definitely for women liberty but more broadly for democracy as a political framework allowing for society and state acceptance of individuality, plurality and social equity, as well as for lay men and women’s access to the brightest aspects of Muslim heritage. Her take on feminism is to put understood in relation with her anti imperialistic stance and her sense of civic responsibility towards subaltern populations. Both aware of globalized issues and anchored into local concerns, she tried to strike the balance between two ends. Did she manage? Meanwhile, what are the stages she went through in her long life path? How was her double-edged position perceived?

This is not a classical talk but a mix of personal testimony and scholarly freethinking about the legacy of a pioneer heterodox feminist.

Talk in English language

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