A group of young feminists in Morocco are at a helm of a movement that is seeking to deconstruct women stereotyping in traditional proverbs, part of a broader feminist endeavor to overthrow language-based perpetuation of gender inequality.
“Ask her for advice but never take it into consideration,” one of many traditional Moroccan proverbs rooted in a cultural attitude that holds women as secondary in a male-centered body of folklore.
“She decides Morocco,” a part of the global political movement “Shedecides” driving change for bodily autonomy, fueled by actions in communities, with young people at its heart, decided to cut off the tradition in 2021.
Under the hashtag #Lssan_fih_3dem (the tongue has bones), nine young Moroccans ambitious for gender’s issues took social media platforms to underline the sexism in Moroccan proverbs.
“We are trying to find better alternatives that do not make people and especially women feel less about themselves but rather empower them,” said Fadoua Badih, the social media manager of Shedecides collective, in an interview with Hespress EN.
The campaign’s idea was baptized in a brainstorming session where one of the collective’s members expressed her irritation from the traditional Moroccan proverb “God bless you with a silver in which your bronze disappears.”
A proverb usually said to men under the cheering of their peers as a marriage wish, since it hides layers of sexist metaphors that enhance the stereotype of the powerful manhood related to bronze and the purity of womanhood tied to silver.
Following the meeting, Fadwa and her eight colleagues gathered more than 100 proverbs and started sharing the results of their research in Moroccan Darija and English on social media platforms to launch a conversation about the effects of the misogyny rooted in our collective heritage.
“The more we looked into the proverbs the more shocked we were at the amount of sexism,” said Fadwa.
In recent times the issue of language and gender, and its implication in the feminist discourse, have gained currency. It is nothing new that history was written by men using linguistics that have been created by men.
The Australian feminist Dale Spender sees that “men created a semantic rule which posits them central and positive as the norm, and they have classified the world from that standpoint, constructing a symbolic system which represents patriarchal order.”
Fadwa says that she is trying with her colleagues to stretch this semantic rule to a more inclusive one, where every gender has a voice.
“We asked ourselves how women would tell these proverbs in their version while also including other genders in the equation, and the campaign #Lsan_Fih_3dem was the result of that query.”
Shedecides Morocco “rebelled” against the well-known proverb the tongue has no bones, used in Moroccan society to justify “slips of the tongue”, in order to underline the importance of choosing the right terms that frame the gender perspectives in society, according to the collective team’s statement to Hespress English.
Hello readers! Male dominance is not only culturally supported, it is religiously supported as well. The Quran has many verses that incite men to subordinate women. Moreover, the value of men in society is measured by the degree of dominance over women. A man who consults his wife in life matters is culturally seen as a “little man”.
The paradox in this context is that women and moms in particular perpetuate the cultural message and pass it to the offsprings. In addition, women’s educational level plays a vital role here. An illiterate woman can never see herself as equal to man. The financial factor is also essential here. Once you get money, you get power. I have many things to say in this field, but unfortunately I have to leave now.