Liberal Feminism Impact on Moroccan Educated Women: Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, FLDM, as a Field Study

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to investigate students’ attitudes about the social status of Moroccan woman and the variables that may influence the cause of woman liberation. These variables may include feminism, female activism and international human rights on one hand. On the other hand, factors such as religion, patriarchy and marriage legislation could stand against the cause of female emancipation. The paper uses a theoretical and practical part. The review of literature is broad and inclusive that it trespasses the national intellectual framework on the issue of woman liberation to referring to western major feministic movements for woman emancipation worldwide such as liberal feminism. The field work is conducted through distributing a representative number of questionnaires, 350 questionnaires. Briefly, the findings proved that the majority of respondents, 55% hold the view that religion stands as a primary factor behind conservative gender perception, whereas, 49% of the respondents believe that education is the factor behind such perceptions. Furthermore, 40% believed that the patriarchal system is the element behind traditional treatment of gender. Concerning marriage legislation, 55% agree with the reforms in Al Mudawana in 2004. For female activism, 72% believe that women highly contributed in bringing about the changes in Al Mudawana reforms of 2004. This helped to generate an increasing female participation in politics as proved by 58% of the respondents. Finally, 65% hold the view that woman social status nowadays is semi-liberal and improving.