Fatema Mernissi

On 30 November 2015, Moroccan feminist writer and sociologist Fatema Mernissi died in Rabat at the age of 75. Her legacy can be greatly attributed to her scholarly and literary contributions to the early Islamic feminist movement. She tackled issues such as Eurocentrism, intersectionality, transnationalism and global feminism in her publications and public lectures. 

Fatema Mernissi was born on 27 September 1940 in Fez, Morocco. She grew up in the harem of her affluent paternal grandmother along with various female kin and servants. She received her primary education in a school established by the nationalist movement, and secondary level education in an all-girls school funded by the French protectorate. In 1957, she studied political science at the Sorbonne in Paris and later at Brandeis University in the US, where she gained her doctorate in 1974.

She returned to work at the Mohammed V University in Rabat and taught at the Faculté des Lettres between 1974 and 1981 on subjects such as methodology, family sociology and psychosociology. Further, she was a research scholar at the University Institute for Scientific Research at the same university.

Mernissi's 'Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society' was written for her PhD thesis and later published as a book which recognizes the power of Muslim women in relation to the Islamic faith. Mernissi is known for her sociopolitical approaches towards discussing gender and sexual identities, specifically those in Morocco and other Muslim countries. 

(Source: Wikpedia)

Selected publications

Publications by Fatema Mernissi

A quoi rêvent les jeunes? / Fatima Mernissi. - Rabat : Marsam, [2007]

Scheherazade goes west : different cultures, different harems / Fatima Mernissi. - New York : Washington Square Press, ©2001

Dreams of trespass : tales of a harem girlhood / Fatima Mernissi. - Reading, Mass. [etc.] : Addison-Wesley, 1994

Le Maroc raconté par ses femmes / Fatima Mernissi. -  Rabat : Société marocaine des éditeurs réunis, 1984

Beyond the veil : male-female dynamics in a modern Muslim society / Fatima Mernissi. - Cambridge, MA : Schenkman [etc.], cop. 1975

Publications about Fatema Mernissi and her work

2002 Eqbal Ahmad Lecture: Fateema Mernissi. Hampshire College, 12 March 2002

Timeline of Moroccan feminists via Wikidata and DBpedia