ABSTRACT
A prominent sociologist recently wrote, “The clitoris is a penis that is hardly procreative, subversive in the eyes of a patriarchal order that sometimes goes as far as to excise it” (Dialmy 1995, 29). The sociologist, Abdessamad Dialmy, is Moroccan and male. He is also correct in his observation that the clitoris, and by extension, female sexual pleasure that is not linked to procreation, is threatening to the patriarchal order of Islam. Dialmy’s work demonstrates that, counter to Western prejudice, men are very much involved in the feminist discourse in North Africa. Dialmy is not obscure; his book was in every bookstore in Rabat in 1997 and from its placement in those stores, one gathers it was selling briskly. So was Zakya Daoud’s fat volume (1996) on the history of the North African women’s movement. People in North Africa are talking about women in the government and the universities, in the press and in the arts. The question is, what, if any, effect does all this talk have on the lives of women themselves?
