Gender regimes in the Middle East and North Africa: The power of feminist movements

Abstract

Applying Walby's model of gender regime, with some modifications, to the Middle East and North Africa, I highlight the importance of the family as an institutional domain, replace the ideal types of social-democratic and neoliberal public gender regimes with neopatriarchal and conservative-corporatist, and elucidate feminist organizing and mobilizing as a key driver in the transition from one public gender regime to another in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. The article contributes to theory-building on (varieties of) gender regimes by underscoring (sub)regional specificities across the capitalist world-system's economic zones and emphasizing the role of feminist activism.