About North African Women’s Rights After the Arab Spring

Abstract

This chapter highlights and documents the agency of women in North Africa in the light of the Arab Spring and its aftermath. It focuses on this agency as far as women’s activism and their legal rights and political participation are concerned. Issues related to these domains are considered from a broad comparative perspective. The chapter reveals the positive role that North African women have been playing in the overall development and social change of their countries. It also shows that women’s gains are irrevocable and that the future of North Africa is significantly linked to the fate of women’s emancipation. The values of a comparative analysis in this article are critical: they enable the reader to appreciate women’s agency in various political and socio-economic contexts and highlight the fact that agency can be appreciated only within a specific environment.