The Role of Women in Islam

Between January and February 2011 Ben Ali and Mubarak were overthrown by a revolution.
In the last decades women activism has been improving, there have been strikes and manifestations. A woman was one of the administrators of the main Facebook pages of the Arab spring.

In December 2006 women of a textile factory started a strong and long strike which had as effect the mobilization of the textile production.

By December 2010 the presence of the women in the revolution has been very important:
- women were always present both in front of the police and on the net;
- the women are not only Muslim ➔ there is a cross participation in the revolution, because Christian women as well participated to the various strikes and manifestations.

Even if many women are veiled, not all of them come from Muslim integralist area: they also belong to the left wing.

Since the revolutions began, many women has been seen differently, many men started to admire them for what they were doing with them, participating in the struggle to improve the condition of the country.

In any way the women were soon excluded from the decision-making process: passed the first moment, they were put aside. One month after the resignation of Mubarak women were treated according to the most integralist Islamic way ➔ on March 9 several women were jailed and tortured for participating to manifestations.

In TUNISIA women asked to seat in the Constitutional Assembly for the new Constitution and after a long struggle managed to be part in the assembly in the same number of men.

Among the 227 member of the Assembly 49 are women (23%), 42 of them were elected inside Naqda party.

The present situation of the Muslim woman derives from a strict and perhaps wrong read of the Qur’an.