Algeria as a New Nation:

A free government, but little change for gender equality

Despite their brave battle against colonialism and the patriarchy during the revolution, Algerian women saw little progress towards gender equality after the war. This section describes how the new Algerian government was willing to recognize female wartime efforts rhetorically; however, women were largely pushed back into the domestic sphere in the decades following the country's independence.

Algerian women protesting misogynistic policies established in the 1980s. The sign in the center reads "Women united for individual and collective liberties."

Prejudice Legislative

"Frantz Fanon thought they would become emancipated after the Algerian war. On the contrary, they have been crushed.” - French lawyer and feminist activist Simone de Beauvoir on the situation of women in Algeria after the war

The Évian Accords were signed in 1962 and gave the FLN power over Algeria’s new provisional government. Headed entirely by men, the FLN’s leadership formed a conservative state that progressively instated discriminatory laws against women in the decades following the war. For instance, the country's Second Constitution of 1974 introduced restrictions on women being able to travel alone, as well as a prohibition on issuing passports to unemployed women. The country's Third Constitution, established in 1989, made matters much worse as the document uses the feminine gender only when referring to the concept of citizenship (the term "Algériennes" is used). However, beyond this mention women were invisible under national law. For example, only the masculine form is employed when discussing employment, thus implying that only men deserve the right to work and that women should exist exclusively as wives, mothers, and daughters who serve men. Moreover, when discussing the country's "special," or minority, groups, women are not mentioned. This denies that women are treated differently than men, thus rejecting responsibility for oppression that women face from within their society and government.

The Code de la Famille

"[The code] made me leave Algeria at only 20 years old. We must understand the regression and restriction that the Code de la Famille forced upon women." - Algerian comedian Nadia Kaci, 2005

Perhaps the most glaring affront to women's rights in Independent Algeria was the “Code de la Famille,” a law that began being drafted as early as the 1960s and that was officially established in 1984. The law is also known as the “Code de L’infamie,” a play on words that is explained by its misogynistic nature that merits its classification as a law of “Marriage, Divorce, Polygamy, and Wife Obedience” by Equality Now, an NGO that advocates for human rights. Among the many alarming articles in the Code, polygamy is permitted and women are not allowed to marry non-Muslim men or get a divorce. What’s more, the law declares that women must have a “male marriage guardian” to approve her marriage. This article rids women of their ability to choose who they marry, a right only excluded to men when they are minors. Thus, when considering marital status the law essentially sets women as minors in any stage of their life and permanently threatens their financial freedom, health, and safety. What's more, this discriminatory act has yet to be repealed, and although it was revised in 2005 to raise the minimum age for marriage and permit women to consent to their marriage without a man's approval, the majority of its repressive clauses still exist today.

Articles in the Code de la Famille of 1984:

Article 8: It is permitted to contract marriage with more than one wife within the limits of the Shari’a, if there is a just ground and the conditions and intentions of equity can be fulfilled.
Article 11: An adult woman concludes her marriage contract in the presence of her “wali” [guardian] who is her father or close male relative or any other male of her choice.
Article 30: It is equally temporarily prohibited: . . . The marriage of a Muslim woman with a non-Muslim man.
Article 48: Divorce is the dissolution of marriage . . . It arises from the will of the husband.

A Lack of Political Representation

"Following independence, the women who took part in the national struggle suddenly disappeared from public view." - Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne

A 1990 "Guide of Laws" meant to educate women on which laws passed by the Algerian government are discriminatory towards their gender. the text reads "Women, do you know the laws that concern you?"

Although there was no specific law passed in Algeria that limited female political participation, women were severely underrepresented in the public sphere in the post-war era. This erasure is most clear in the lack of female elected officials after the war. Despite the female hand in helping the FLN gain power over the country, the new Algerian government was led entirely by men and even the parliament was male dominant. The following are some statistics that demonstrate this inequality:

During the first People's National Assembly (APN) meeting in 1962, which is Algeria's lower house of parliament, there were only ten women amongst the 194 members present.
In the APN's second meeting in 1963, there were not more than two women present.
When 88 women were interviewed regarding their political involvement directly after the war, 59 said they had not been able to be politically active legally.
In 1997, women still only occupied 3.4% of the APN's elected seats, showing that minimal female representation did not improve over the course of the century.

This repression was promoted both by political leaders and by the general population. For example, Djamila Bouhired attempted to rejoin the political scene as soon as she was released from prison in 1962. However, she was described by Middle Eastern Newspaper Middle East Eye as being "deliberately pushed aside" by male leaders of the new administration. What's more, members of the National Assembly are elected by the electorate, thus indicating that the majority of the Algerian people did not wish to see an increase in female politicians in power. The lack of female electability reveals a return of sexist attitudes that expected women to return to their traditional, submissive roles in the domestic sphere. So, even with women's wartime sacrifices that disrupted gender barriers, a nationalist patriarchy took power after liberation, thus robbing women of the freedom that they fought to gain.

Empty Symbolism

"In Algeria, the participation of Algerian women in the war for liberation is not a forgotten story, but the memory is selective." - Historian Natalya Vince

The sacrifices that women made during the war yielded little action in terms of gender equality. This is not to say, however, that their legacy was forgotten in the post-war period. Instead, the archetype of armed female militants was leveraged by the Algerian government to boost nationalism and improve the country's reputation on an international scale.

In the absence of truly democratic governing systems, Algerian politicians during this time relied on history to legitimize their regime. This tactic inspired the celebration of female war involvement as a way of promoting the country as modern and progressive. For example, the government put portraits of the most famous female members of the FLN in national museums, the main streets in Algiers, and even in schools. Similarly, media was produced commemorating female wartime efforts. For example, films like La Bataille D'Alger and Djamila highlight the work that women did in the war's urban battle grounds. Such imagery sought to convey an aura of dynamism and egalitarianism in the new regime and support their official, modernist slogan that they were established "by the people, for the people."

A poster for the 1958 film "Djamila," a historical movie about Djamila Bouhired's participation in the revolution

This symbolism was valuable as it recognized female efforts in the war for liberation. However, it was also problematic. Firstly, the politicization of female militant involvement in cities overlooked the wartime involvement of women in Algeria's rural areas. Indeed, government-sponsored posters, films, and news articles were selective in only highlighting the more "glamorous" activities of women in the war. For example, Zohra Drif was frequently recognized for her bombing of a Milk Bar in Algiers. This publicity overlooked the more mundane, but still essential, work of women in rural areas who assumed the administration roles of men who left for the war, hid soldiers, prepared wartime provisions, and so on. In addition, this celebration was hypocritical. While women were given kudos by the media, the government did not officially applaud their involvement, and in the FLN's General Secretariat list of "historic" FLN leaders, no women were mentioned. In addition, amongst the over 300,000 women who participated, in 1990 only 10,000 were receiving a pension for their efforts. The 1964 government document "Charte d'Alger" even had a section on veteran pensions, but it only discusses the concept in the masculine gender to avoid official recognition of female women involvement in a place outside of the home. What's more, as we see with the Code de la Famille, gender equality only digressed after the war, and even as militant Djamila Bouhired had an entire film made to glorify her war effort, after independence she was never able to gain an elected position in government. Thus, while women were rhetorically applauded for their wartime efforts, in reality this celebration was manipulative; the post-war government carefully exploited female war involvement to boost their own power without actually rewarding women for their work. Consequentially, despite attempts to maintain representation in the public sphere, women were not able to fully enjoy their new freedom as persistent, sexist attitudes and laws pushed them back into the domestic sphere.

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