Revolutionary Nuns or Totalitarian Pawns: Evaluating Libyan State Feminism After Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi

Abstract

This chapter centers women’s issues to situate post-revolutionary Libya as emblematic of a “decolonization” period rather than as representing the aftermath of a conventional civil war, because the previous politicized regime operated according to a zero-sum dynamic. The chapter uses a critical analysis that contextualizes gendered realities in Libya prior to, during, and after Gaddafi’s governance, and contends with the particularities of Libyan colonization and independence, forces that directly shaped the nation’s subsequent political trajectory: nearly a century of totalitarian, personalized rule. Hence, the challenges that face contemporary Libyan women directly reflect the accumulated specificities of personalized control, ideology, and historical inheritance that not only isolated Libya, but that differentiate it and Gaddafi from other totalitarian nations and leaders.