GAD Chat: Gender in the Fes-Meknes Region
Compiled & Written by Jessica Wamala
Edited by Katie Bercegeay & Abbie Olson
It is neither possible to characterize a single woman or man’s experience in Morocco, nor is it appropriate to essentialize these groups through the painting of a simple picture of gender relations in Morocco.
Gender relations in Morocco are complex. At first glance, the roles and responsibilities that define what it means to be a man or a woman in Morocco may seem rigid, but under reflection they are just as varied as the geographies and landscapes of Morocco themselves. It should not come as a surprise when one thinks of a Moroccan woman working to feed her family or a Moroccan boy supporting his sisters’ education. Only by witnessing, listening, and understanding what it feels like to be a man or woman can we unpack trends and observations around how it feels to experience gender in Morocco.
Welcome to GAD Chats! A four part series to highlight the diversity of gender dynamics and perspectives in Morocco.
The GAD committee has been reaching out to members of the Peace Corps community to share their personal experiences and ideas as men and women living within the complex gender landscape of Morocco. This is not a diagnosis. This is not a survey. This is not a license to assume your experience will mirror the stories that will be told in this or subsequent posts.
We hope to give a glimpse of life in 4 different regions through 16 perspectives. These perspectives are a chance to listen, to learn, to observe, to question.
This is GAD Chat: Gender in the Fes-Meknes Region.
4 voices. 4 lenses. 4 perspectives.
The Fes-Meknes region is host to many Peace Corps sites—some of which double for Community Based Training (CBT) sites—and the city for Peace Corps Pre-Service Training (PST) hubs. Volunteers and Trainees are spread all along the corridors that enclose and surround Meknes and Fes as well as surrounding provincial townships along less populated routes. I lived off the national transit road between Fes and Taza in an agricultural city of 35,000.
In compiling perspectives for this project, I spoke to four peers who also live in the region: Krysten, Khalid, Hayat, and Steve.
Krysten, a second-year American volunteer, lives and works between two small villages of 2,000 and 4,000.
Khalid, a Moroccan GAD Cultural Consultant and Translator (CCT), lives in the bustling city of Meknes.
Hayat, a Moroccan Language and Culture Facilitator (LCF), lives in a commuter village near Fes just past the airport.
Steve, a third-year American volunteer, lives in a small rural town which serves as center to the surrounding villages with a combined population estimated at 15,000.
Below is a an overview and analysis of our experiences, perspectives, and ideas regarding gender as it relates to dress, work, public space, the home, education, and marriage in our respective sites.
What are men and women in the Fes-Meknes region wearing?
We all have observed that dress depends largely on age. How conservatively depends on each community. In general, Khalid, Steve and I notice that in the city, women and men are wearing modern styles that include pants, t-shirts, blouses, and dresses. These styles are purchased from clothing retailers and trendy boutiques cluttering the streets in bigger towns and the cities of Fes and Meknes. There can be no assumptions drawn around why a woman chooses to wear a headscarf or not. It is not uncommon for us to notice women in the city wearing a headscarf, and in our more rural communities, most adult women cover their head. Hayat is a Moroccan LCF who goes uncovered. One of Steve’s female counterparts only within the last few years started wearing a headscarf because it felt right to her. She said to Steve that she never felt pressured by her family or community; it was a personal choice.
In rural areas, once a girl is past a certain age, families and the community expect her to dress more conservatively. In all of our experiences, we see young girls have a lot of freedom, wearing dresses and tank tops. Krysten finds that the girls in her villages tend to dress much more conservatively compared than girls in Meknes—the closest city. As early as middle school, many girls in Krysten’s village wear a headscarf and as they mature, more wear knee-length, long-sleeves and high-necked tops. In these communities, outside of the cities, conformity is expected. According to Hayat, conformity looks long and modest, including long dresses and skirts. Shorts, leggings, tight pants, and short skirts and dresses are seen as abnormal. An hour east of Fes, my city witnesses young married and unmarried women wearing a mix of traditional clothing and modern outfits, but older women with children mainly dress in the traditional jalaba and headscarf outside of the house.
Young boys and men in the Fes-Meknes region commonly wear t-shirts, button-ups, and jeans. Bald caps (tarbush) are also common. In Steve’s rural town, traditional clothes are worn more often on Fridays and by men who frequent the mosque daily. Winter also brings more thick jalabas. Khalid doesn’t imagine he will start wearing the jalaba as a daily part of his routine until he is a grandfather.
How is gender at work experienced?
In Meknes, Khalid has had many positive experiences working with women at his University, going out for coffee or juice in public places, or interacting with women at administrative offices or supermarkets. He has no problem with conducting activities with women at the Dar Chabab, or youth center, and has successfully implemented projects with past female volunteers and attendees of both genders. In Fes, Hayat worked in a hotel, and the number of women working equaled the number of men working. Given the size of Fes, women have the choice to work and not just stay at home.
Contrary to the city, Steve comments that feelings of apathy, hopelessness, and despair are overwhelming in his rural town because of the lack of job opportunities. With high unemployment staring back at his participants, it was difficult to keep the male attendees of his employability workshop from dropping out. Ultimately, of the original group, one third were men, and only one man completed the course. Given the conservative, male dominated environment of Krysten’s villages, she works closely with her director to make the Dar Chabab a safe, fun center for girls to play and learn. Despite the conservatism of one of her villages, Krysten notices mothers who work at the commune and a baking & embroidery cooperative. In the other, she rarely sees a woman employed outside the home. Of the mothers who work full time, they are still expected to be responsible for all household duties.
How is gender in the public space experienced?
Outside the large cities of Fes and Meknes, men dominate the public space. It is common to see women gathering in the homes, roofs, or doorways of a family home but uncommon to see women sitting in a café or public street. Inside Meknes, Khalid does not experience gender segregation to this degree. It is common for him to see unmarried or married couples by a fountain, or single women working alone in a café.
Sexual harassment is also big phenomenon, with both married and unmarried men harassing both Moroccan and foreign women. Men are sometimes the recipients of unwanted attention but Khalid highlights that not all men will sexually harass. Hayat recognizes the seriousness of sexual harassment, commenting that Moroccans everyday are more aware of the problem and its negative impact. However, Khalid points out that many men and women witnessing harassment will also not step in because they feel it is not their business.
In Krysten’s villages, many of the unmarried women rarely leave the house. In Steve’s community, there are men who populate the cafes all day but also men who work very hard—waking up before 6am and closing their shops at midnight. But he does not see these working men interacting with women beyond formal trades or exchanges.
For those who live in villages and small towns, the gender segregation between boys and girls varies. I witness boys and girls after puberty playing separately, with groups of girls almost always within eyesight from one of their parents’ windows. Boys will play pick-up soccer on any empty lot somewhere in the neighborhood, and if not at a café, young men are often seen congregating on stoops or alleyways. While in my small town interaction between the genders after puberty age is uncommon, in Steve’s similar-sized community, it is common to see interaction between young boys and girls up until high school. Male and female high schoolers are on the street, sitting together in youth centers, playing, coming and leaving together. Yet in both of our communities, we agree that beyond high school, informal interactions between men and women dwindle significantly.
How is gender experienced at home?
Krysten raises an important point. Is it common for working women to also balance the responsibilities of the home? In the large majority of the cases in her communities, the father is typically the money earner in the family and the mother is responsible for the household. If a woman takes on the moneymaking responsibilities, she must also ensure the domestic tasks are done. Household responsibilities include cooking, cleaning, child rearing, embroidery, laundry, and discipline. While Krysten has never seen a father clean in the house, Khalid helps out around the house. Steve has also seen men taking on household responsibilities. His male counterpart is responsible for the cooking and cleaning in order to care of himself and his elderly parents. In the Fes-Meknes region, the person designated as responsible for money after it is earned depends on the individual family. In some families, the father takes on the responsibility of all purchases, and he is the one who goes to the weekly souk, or market. However, in others, the father hands over his earnings to the mother, and she determines where and how it is spent.
While the responsibility of discipline is often shared, I have noticed girls are more often corrected than their male peers or family members, by both their parents and teachers. Girls are expected to help their mothers with the household responsibilities while I witness very little expectations or restraints placed on boys. Furthermore, Steve has observed the daughter of his landlord doing all the household chores, cooking, cleaning. She never accepts invitations out of the house.
How is gender experienced through education?
The availability of schools in a community can drastically affect the gendered experience of education. In a large city like Meknes, both boys and girls have access to all levels of education because the distance to travel to school is relatively small and there is access to tutors and a safe learning environment. The prevalence of boarding opportunities for nearby residents through Dar Talib(a)s increases access to education for both genders. Khalid notes that even though there is access to higher education in the city, fathers have a hand in deciding if a girl will continue their education. Some girls will drop out of school in Meknes to learn housework and look for a husband.
In Krysten’s two small villages where neither have a high school, she sees two very different experiences. In one, there is a middle school, to which girls have easy access, so the majority of them complete the 9th grade and many go onto high school in the nearby bigger cities of Meknes or Moulay Idriss. The average marriage age is early- to mid-twenties and some families prioritize their daughters’ education before marriage. She also has seen families supportive of girls with dreams to attend university or have careers. For boys, nearly all finish middle school and the majority continues on to high school or some kind of technical training. Many go to university, and the expectation is that they find a job and later marry once they’ve saved up enough money.
However, in her other slightly larger village, the opportunity for education is much more limited since the only school there is for elementary levels. The middle school is a 5-kilometer hike away. It has a Dar Taliba, or girls’ boarding school, but not all families are comfortable sending their girls away. In terms of numbers, only about half the girls continue onto middle school after elementary school. However, there has been a small increase in attendance, retention, and matriculation since daily transportation to school has been offered. Perhaps only 5 girls are currently enrolled in high school, and maybe one or two will continue on to university. The other half will stay at home and help their mothers with household duties. Many of them learn embroidery, which is a popular craft in the area. But because there is no Nedi Neswi, or women’s center, in the village, the girls and young women depend on a female family member to teach them. Here, the average marriage age is 15-16, and it is not uncommon for girls to marry as young as 14 and immediately begin having children. This, of course, has an impact on their education.
Families have no trouble with boys making the 5-kilometer trek to the middle school, so the majority of them attend. However, because they do not have access to tutoring or outside help with their studies, many of them fail and drop out by their last year. Most do not go to high school, choosing instead to find work in the city, obtain a diploma certifying them in a trade, or work at a nearby farm or olive grove. In any given year, less than 5 boys will attend high school in the closest city, Moulay Idriss, and maybe one or two will go to university. The marriage age for young men varies between early-twenties and early-thirties and is dependent upon the rate their savings grows large enough to financially support a family.
How is gender experienced through marriage?
Marriage is seen as the pinnacle of coming to age. Hayat articulates that only through marriage does a boy become a man and a girl becomes a woman. I have had conversations around marriage with both genders beginning as early as high school. The conversations I have had with older boys and young men about marriage center on the pressure they feel to find work in order to marry as early as possible. The conversations I have had with girls around marriage center around the opinions of their families and their suitor’s wealth, job, and honor. I have seen many young women drop out of high school in order to marry, and I attended a wedding between a 30-year-old groom and 17-year-old bride.
Hayat brings up the difficulties around mixed-gender friendships before marriage. Islam does not condone it, and Moroccan culture does not accept it. Therefore, it is common for marriages to begin without love. But Hayat points out that some couples do learn to love each other once married. Steve has not been privy to many conversations around marriage, speaking only once to an ambivalent male counterpart about a potential union relatives had arranged to his cousin. Khalid is unmarried and empathizes with the pressures girls in Morocco face to get married. He says he does not feel pressured to marry yet but wants to be in a better position financially before he starts thinking about supporting a family.
Conclusion
Gender is only one lens through which we can unpack our experience as Peace Corps Volunteers in Morocco.
What do we make of all these observations? These 4 voices—Hayat, Krysten, Khalid, and Steve—offered their lens as a way to introduce various aspects of gender. They discussed the effects of gender on dress, work, public space, family roles and responsibilities, education, and marriage. They offered their stories and what they learned from opening their eyes.
But these are their experiences. Gender roles in Morocco shape the way a man is judged and the way a woman is judged. The best father is a man who meets his family’s needs of food and money. The best mother is a woman who meets her family’s needs around the home. Cultural values limit women, but gender equality exists in many spaces in Morocco.
Girls are more aware of the future now and they are empowered in many spaces to make it brighter. Girls are studying, learning, and working to define their success. Boys are taking up new skills and looking for jobs to earn money.
Ultimately, gender will shape your Peace Corps experience to some extent, especially as a youth developer, just as it shapes the everyday lives of Moroccans and Americans alike. There are many ways to implement gender into your work, both regarding larger-scale projects and everyday interactions with community members. Just keep your mind open with your gender lens on.
Jessica Wamala is an RPCV who served in the Fes-Meknes region 2016-2017. During her tenure in Morocco, Jessica served as the Chairperson of the Gender & Development (GAD) Committee.
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Posted by Abbie Olson
