Fatema Mernissi was an extraordinary woman. Having spent more than half of her life writing and analyzing Islam and women as well as fighting for gender equality, it should come as no surprise that Mernissi was included in The Guardian’s 2011 global list of “Top 100 Women: Activists and Campaigners.” Fatema Mernissi was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1940. She was a writer, sociologist, and feminist activist whose books reached a broad regional and international audience and were translated to many languages. Mernissi studied political science at Sorbonne University in France before moving to Brandeis University in the United States where she received her doctorate in sociology in 1973 after completing her dissertation: “Beyond the Veil: Sex as Social Engineering”. In the 1980s she became a lecturer at the Mohammed V University in Rabat. Mernissi was a prolific writer, publishing books that received international acclaim, including “Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World”; “The Veil and the Male Elite; A Feminist Interpretation of Islam”; “Scheherazade Goes West: Different Cultures, Different Harems”; “Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood”, etc. In addition to her academic work, Mernissi was known for her activism for women’s rights. She conducted interviews in the late 1970s and 1980s to map prevailing attitudes towards women and work. She did sociological research for UNESCO and the ILO. Mernissi published a number of articles and papers that had major impact within and beyond her homeland, in the Arab region and the whole world. However, this success was preceded by a ban on her writings in some Arab countries due to her progressive ideas and the audacity of her discourses. This ban led her to publish her first book “Woman in the Muslim Unconscious” (1982) in France under the pseudonym “Fatna Ait El Sabbah.” The ban was eventually lifted and she was able to publish under her real name. She wrote “The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Islam”, which was received with both praise and criticism. Mernissi received a number of international honors and awards, most notably the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 2003, and the Dutch Erasmus Prize which was awarded at a conference organized in 2004 under the theme of “Religion and Modernity.”

Asmae Benadada is a Professor at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Dhahir Al Mehraz, University of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah, Fez, Morocco. She specializes in Women’s Studies and Political Sociology. Benadada’s inaugural lecture focuses on the audacity and critical thinking characterizing the work of Fatema Mernissi, as she was among the pioneers who challenged the secrecy and silence surrounding sensitive and taboo issues in the Arab-Islamic culture. These can be summarized by the trinity of gender, religion, and politics, and the position of women within this trinity. With great intellectual courage and academic prowess, Mernissi addressed these issues, transforming them into subjects worthy of research, discussion, analysis, and critique. She utilized both her academic background and women’s rights’ experiences to deconstruct patriarchy in Arab-Islamic culture. Fatema Mernissi noted from the outset that the social and daily problems of women cannot be understood without a deconstructive and critical understanding of the historical, intellectual and religious foundations and cultural backgrounds within which patriarchy and its imaginary are anchored. Nor could these problems be understood without mapping the manifestations of women’s marginalization and inferiority. In her lecture, Benadada points out that Mernissi adopted two methodological approaches in her writings. She used an analytical historical approach in order to understand the status of women in Islamic heritage and jurisprudence and attempt to find answers to modern questions. The second approach relied on field and sociological research to explore the everyday life of a large number of Moroccan women and the challenges they faced. In this lecture, Benadada addresses both methodological approaches while focusing on Mernissi’s field research and projects that focused on Moroccan women in their diverse contexts as workers, peasants, weavers and employees. She also addresses Mernissi’s study of women and youth in civil society associations. Finally, the lecture touches on the research Mernissi was developing on how the digital revolution and social networking sites have affected media and religious discourse, a project that did not see the light as she passed away before its completion.

Zeina Zaatari is the Director of the Arab American Cultural Center and adjunct faculty in Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.This lecture reflects on and analyzes feminist and queer movements in the Arab region including their social change projects, institutions and organizations, knowledge production, and transformations over time. The lecture utilizes a storytelling methodology as an academic methodology and an avenue for social change. It draws on Mernissi’s storytelling methodology evident in several of her books and essays where she tells stories about her life, the lives of others including her family members and people she met, as well as stories from the oral histories she gathered in her research. This methodology allowed her to tell counter-stories, reach and dialogue with the other, give birth to new ideas, and deconstruct stereotypical frameworks about women and gender. Zaatari insists on linking storytelling as a strategy for social change on the one hand and oral and life history as a feminist academic methodology that aims to produce knowledge for social change on the other hand. The lecture focuses on historicizing the shifts in organizational trajectories, priorities, knowledge production frameworks, and problematics of social change. It then focuses on the birth of the sexual and bodily rights/queer movements and its connection and critiques of the women’s movements. The lecture then addresses the problematics of visibility which often accompanies social change projects. Zaatari links between the experiences and strategies of the feminist and the queer movements around this problematic; breaking chains and expecting backlash. Visibility is not only connected to daily practices but has also played an important role in periods of political fervor such as during revolutions and uprisings. Mernissi’s main commitment has always been to social change. She was a rebellious intellectual, ready to cross borders (academic, geographic, theoretical, etc.) and to utilize different strategies for social change projects; as such opening the door for others to take over the public space and create new frameworks and strategies.