French Algeria:

An era of intersectionality for Algerian women

France’s arrival to Algeria in 1830 exacerbated the subordination of Algeria’s female population. In this section, we will see how during the 132 years of French rule, Algerian women were faced with a difficult intersectionality of oppression from both colonial systems and their society’s patriarchal structure.

Colonial Oppression

"Colonization without domination will always be, in my mind, incomplete and risky." - Alexis de Tocqueville, 1844

Native Algerians faced limited liberties under French rule. Influential philosopher and politician Alexis de Tocqueville theorized that maintaining total control over Algerians was essential in benefiting from colonization and assuring a "future on the coast." This view was widely embraced and implemented by French authorities. For example, the “Code de L’indigénat," which remained in effect from 1881 to 1942, created a second class citizenship for the country’s muslim population under which the group faced a series of restrictions to limit their social, economic, and political power. For example, the code prohibited Algerians from doing the following: holding meetings, exercising political power, and having certain jobs.

Segregation was also commonplace; Algerians were not permitted to attend the same schools as French citizens, and urban areas were strictly divided between Algerian and European neighborhoods.

A group of Freshmen boys at the Lycée E.F. Gautier in Algeria during the 1955-56 academic year. This was a class of all French students, demonstrating the limited integration of Algerian and European students during this time.

Gender Inequality

"[Men were] the figures who dominated the familial clan... women lived in a community closed off to all but herself." - Historian Mohammed Harbi reflecting on his childhood in Algeria

Despite colonialism bringing on a reorganization of social structures, pre-colonial Algerian patriarchal norms persisted. During French colonization, women continued to be constrained to the domestic sphere, lack political representation and the right to vote, and were obligated to respond to a man as the head of household. In fact, in come cases the limitations that women faced became even more severe. French rule stripped Algerian men of their pride and ability to succeed due to the Code de L'indigénat;" therefore, some men felt the need to assert themselves even more aggressively within the family circle and take what little power men held in this space. Other men set more severe restrictions on their wife's ability to leave the home in an attempt to protect her from the unfamiliar foreigners. Both approaches resulted in a reduction of the small amount of autonomy that women held in the pre-colonial era.

Algerian women walking together in Algiers because it was not custom for a female to leave the house alone.

The Colonial Gaze

"The dominant attitude [of colonizers towards women] seems to us as an exotic romanticism, heavily tinged with sensuality." - Political philosopher Frantz Fanon on French colonization, 1959

Not only was this subordination limiting to women within their close communities, but a lack of visibility to the general public also provoked a harmful orientalist perspective in the eyes of the French. Orientalism, also known as the colonial gaze, is a depiction of societal characteristics in the "east" (mainly in Asia, but also parts of North Africa), and it was used by European colonizers to both disparage the colonized and make colonial daily life seem exotic. This phenomenon was used specifically to sexualize Algerian women's mysterious inaccessibility in the household and behind the veil. Indeed, during this time Algerian women were painted and photographed by Europeans as passive and sexually "easy" in order to support the orientalist view of the colonized as exotic creatures. French photographers even staged photoshoots with European subjects dressed as Algerian women to create portraits, postcards, and news releases supporting the orientalist view. Not only did this perspective sexualize women, but it also set them as inferior. As described by French diplomat Léon Roches in 1832, "It is generally believed [among the French]... that the Muslim woman has no culture, and that she aspired to nothing but to pease her husband and master, and give him children." This can be seen in a series of French postcards depicting Algerian women lazily laying about the household, as well as in Eugène Delacroix's famous painting Les femmes dans leur appartement. In this work, we see women seated, sitting passively inside the home, as if waiting to dote on a man at any moment. What's more, the fact that Delacroix's painting dates back to 1834 and that the postcards were published throughout the 20th century shows just how pervasive and lasting the orientalist perspective was. Indeed, these pieces demonstrate the troubling trend in the colonial era in which women were not only set as subordinates within the household, but their public reputation was also denigrated as they were branded by Europeans as lesser citizens good only for sexual purposes.

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