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Peddling saleswomen in the Cairo metro system are classified as informal workers, operating without an official work contract or social insurance. This category of workers has been ignored for years. But the stories of these saleswomen are harsh, and they can be read on their faces, on the constant fear and anxiety legible in their features.

Female workers in the profession of harkous painting in Tunisia suffer from social rejection and are targeted by security forces. Though this profession is part of Tunisian heritage, it has not been given adequate care by the government, and the women who work in it face various violations in the streets, violations that are compounded by a miserable economic situation.

With her wrinkled face browned from the sun, her white hair and tired eyes, Umm Youssef watches the passersby in Bab Tuma Square in Damascus. Sometimes, she wanders away, but customers call her back and she rushes to make coffee in front of her car. Everything she needs is in that car, even the gas cylinder and material she needs to prepare hot drinks.

The streets of Algiers reveal an often-ignored reality: that of unhoused women who, every day, must confront discomfort, danger, hunger, and indifference. Among them, many women, alone or with their children, bear the weight of extreme marginalization living in the streets. Far from being mere statistics, they embody the hidden face of a growing social crisis.

At present, women of 35 nationalities are working as sex workers in Rome. Who are these women? What brought them to the Italian capital? This investigation, conducted by two of our correspondents in Rome, Federica Araco and Nathalie Galesne, attempts to find the answers to these questions.

The Mediterranean basin is vast. Its scenes of everyday life, with women busy in the streets, are numerous. Despite the rights and freedoms that women have won in recent decades through feminist struggle, public space in many towns and villages on both shores of the Mediterranean is still a territory dominated by the masculine plural.

The impact of the Israeli war has been even more severe on the women in Gaza. According to the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), over 90% of women in Gaza have been forced to leave their homes to be housed in centers with no amenities. As a result, these women have found themselves having to live, work, and survive on the streets, with all the difficulties this entails.

On both shores of the Mediterranean, one constant emerges: women's bodies are a social, political, aesthetic, ethical, and economic issue. Caught between social control, submission, and emancipation, how do women navigate this tyranny of appearance? Here's an in-depth exploration of a topic that has deeply inspired our editorial team.

From ancestral traditions to contemporary standards, the path to self-acceptance is one taken by women in general, and Maghrebi women in particular. Below is the story of a journey from tender childhood memories to internal rebellion against established norms.

In one day’s time, from July 26 to August 11, the Paris Olympic Games open. For the first time in history, the Games are welcoming an equal number of male and female competitors. Despite the various obstacles, here and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, more than ever before sport is an engine of emancipation for women. This dossier on Women and Sports demonstrates as much.