Files

Since the first episodes of the series Wlad Badia (Badia’s Sons) started airing, female roles emerged clear and strong, breaking away from the stereotypical portrayal of women.

During the first half of the month of Ramadan, the series Neama al-Avocato (Neama the Lawyer) made it to the list of the most-watched shows on multiple viewing platforms.

This dossier, encompassing the words, reports, and articles of Mediterranean feminist journalists who live either on the front lines of armed conflict or nearby, intends to give a face, a name, and flesh to all the women who fight to maintain their dignity in situations of extreme violence.

The documentary by Lebanese director Jocelyne Saab, screened at the 27/20 Festival in Tunis, shook the public. What do these images and voices, captured in 1973, tell us?

Dr. Alice Rothchild, a retired American obstetrician-gynecologist and committed feminist, has been a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause for many years. Now a writer and filmmaker, her convictions are reflected in her many books. Her sensitivity and experience give her a certain finesse in bearing witness to the situation of women in the Gaza Strip.

For several years, Algerian feminists have been undertaking the effort to reclaim the histories of the women of their country. Because after independence in 1962, the official version of History only recorded a few iconic faces of the martyrs that fell in the war of liberation.

Women who cover conflicts are not a third gender: we are women, women who are treated as equals by potential aggressors during our work in controlled contexts. But when chaos breaks out and the mob favors anonymity and impunity, we are treated as what we are: women.

In an exclusive interview with Medfeminiswiya, Dr. Fethia Saidi, a sociologist at the University of Tunis and a feminist activist, discusses the sociological and gender contexts of women in war, highlighting their contributions to resistance and defending the right to self-determination. Dr. Saidi also emphasizes the heavy price women pay in war zones as victims of rape, assault, and murder. She explains how these practices are becoming an ever more brutal weapon in current wars.

Even in vulnerability and economic, social, and legal marginalization, women are not equal to men. But this doesn’t include their fighting spirit and their astounding capacity to resist and revive themselves. Because women, in fighting for their survival and that of their children, manage to address injustice head-on.

In the province of Caserta, EVA, a women’s cooperative, has been active since 1999. It runs five anti-violence centers, three shelters, and three businesses to help women who have been victims of violence on their road to autonomy.