ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the work of Tunisian women cartoonists Lilia Halloul, Nadia Khiari, and Nadia Dhab, and Moroccan woman cartoonist Riham ElHour. Working in different languages (French, Arabic, and English), these Maghrebi artists engage the medium in ways that are consistent with the artform's purposes and practices, while subverting the genre's expectations about the creator, the subject, and the audience. Following into the tradition of cartooning, these cartoonists use humor as a means of resistance. However, they tackle controversial subjects (especially with regards to human rights) on a platform that has been strictly male-dominated, while still proclaiming their own personal identities as women. They do so by deploying humor in strategic ways – seemingly mocking femininity, underplaying its representation by focusing on the “other,” and drawing on established traditions of humor – to give voice to what has otherwise been unspeakable: harassment of women in public space, domestic violence against women, state violence against other marginalized groups, marginalization of women's social and political roles, LGBTQ rights, and the deification of men. Engaging in a politics from below in a highly accessible format, these cartoonists aim to affect social and political changes in unique and subversive ways.
