Podcasts about feminism, intergenerational conversations and education in schools. As it becomes increasingly difficult to work for political change in Morocco and especially in Tunisia, there is a need to break the stereotypes of what feminism is. This was the unanimous verdict when activists from both countries gathered for a feminist youth summit in Casablanca during the first weekend of December 2024. 

“Just take a look around and see how much and how eagerly people are discussing and exchanging ideas just because we are here together,” says 29-year-old Sherifa as she takes a big sip of her coffee.

Sherifa flew into Casablanca from Tunisia last night, so she is looking for an extra energy boost this afternoon as an attendee on the first day of the Feminist Youth Summit.

“I have honestly been losing faith in both activism and the feminist cause in recent years. With everything happening in Tunisia and the rest of the world, I was beginning to doubt the universality of human rights and women’s rights. Occasionally, I have felt that it seems pointless to be an activist and try to make a difference given the current obstacles we are facing. But now I am here and I have gained a new sense of motivation,” she says.

Tunisia has seen a dramatic decline in democratic rights in recent years and it is becoming increasingly difficult for activists to work to strengthen human rights and feminism. In Morocco, the political climate is calmer, but a major reform of family laws is underway for the first time in twenty years, and it is important to involve young people and promote civic engagement as part of this effort.

This is why KVINFO and the Moroccan partner organisation ATEC is gathering over 50 young feminists from Morocco and Tunisia to exchange and develop ideas on how to strengthen the young feminist movement in these two countries.

In addition to idea-generating workshops, the summit also introduces attendees to young leaders, feminist scholars and experts in leading civil society activism projects.

The necessity of breaking stereotypes

Young attendees from the two countries are gathered at round tables in a large conference hall adorned by small chandeliers in the ceiling, and name tags and translation equipment are placed on every table. Discussions are mainly conducted in Arabic, but French and English also mix in with the enthusiastic buzz in the room.

Everyone has been handed a small orange scarf at registration, so if you look down the hall, they are everywhere as a reference to this year’s international 16 Days of Activism campaign to highlight the issue of violence against women.

On Sunday, they also start making preliminary budgets, planning concrete activities, setting goals and discussing challenges. They work to finalise as much as possible before presenting their ideas in front of all the other attendees and members of the committee that will evaluate the final project applications and award seed grants to the best ones among them, helping to turn them into reality.

“Our idea is to create a Feminist Day on 8 March where all generations of feminists in Morocco come together and exchange ideas so we can strengthen our collaboration across the movement. We will also use this day to organise awareness days in schools around Morocco, in urban as well as rural areas,” says Chaiima during her group’s presentation.

“In this way, many children can gain an understanding of what feminism is, what the basic ideas of rights and more equality involve, perhaps even before they are presented with the misconceptions of it all. Hopefully it can foster a lot of young feminists from all over the country and a stronger movement in the future,” she continues.

“These are not foreign thoughts”

The idea of wanting to break the stereotypes of feminism among their peers is echoed in many presentations.

For example, one group is proposing to organise feminist debate cafés in schools in all parts of Morocco. They will engage in conversations about young people’s rights and opportunities and gather all input into a press release that can then be used to push for the policy changes they demand – and equip young people to communicate with local authorities about their proposals.

Others suggest creating a podcast featuring conversations about feminism between generations in order to build bridges. Some attendees suggest creating small social media campaigns on platforms such as Tiktok and Instagram with video reports that show how feminist ideas can be used to create necessary change in areas such as law, health, politics, sports and art.

Ayoub, who is from the Atlas Mountains, has also developed an idea with his group to challenge what he calls “misconceptions” about what feminism is.

“Where I’m from, we are Berber and in our culture, women are strong. They have a lot of power and freedom in society, and men and women are equals in many respects. According to our rituals and in our everyday lives, for example, men and women are allowed to get romantically involved before marriage. We believe that we should get back to our roots by helping to correct some of the misconceptions about feminism. It is not a new, foreign thing, it is simply a lot of the ideas about equality we are already familiar with, and we want to show that,” he says and explains that their project will include both a survey among young people via social media and a series of workshops for young people about feminism.

They will use different creative ways to develop solutions in their workshops and show where the ideas of equal rights and opportunities can play a role with regard to many of the common issues faced by young people in their daily lives.

“We hope that many of the young people in the area will be able to see that these are not foreign ideas, that these are ideas they already have accepted to be true, leading them to become active in the feminist movement, in their families and in public in their local communities – rather than the other way around.”

Other ideas range from creating better psychological support for feminist activists who experience physical or psychological violence to collecting testimonies.

Sherifa from Tunisia has chosen to work alone and presents as her project her intent to write a book for other young Tunisian people with personal stories of many different young feminists.

She feels that the fact that you only ever hear the most extreme stories about activists in public can discourage many young people from getting involved in activist work for more equality. Those who have experienced violence, abuse or oppression themselves or those who give up their entire lives to work for the cause – or end up in prison, for example.

“They don’t see themselves in those stories. If we want more people to get involved, it is obviously important to talk about the legislation we want to change and the problems we want to address,” she begins.

“However, in my experience, it is even more impactful if other young people can mirror themselves in you. If they can see themselves in your experiences and stories, they can also see the need to tell their own stories – even if they are not as dramatic. In turn, we are stressing that their experiences and perspectives are needed if we are to change anything,” she elaborates.

Impressed by their language

In between the many three-minute presentations of ideas, people around the room applaud enthusiastically, furrow their brows and ask questions.

Among the young crowd is also the experienced Tunisian researcher, writer and activist, Amel Grami. In addition to opening the summit with a presentation on the feminist movement in Tunisia, she is also part of the committee that will later select the project applications and the groups that will receive support to bring their ideas to life.