ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author uses the example of the public bath in Moroccan society to discuss the sexual division of space that is characteristic of North African cultures. She looks into the paradox of the hammam as the most private of public female domains. Historians have pointed out that the Western interpretation of privacy as the right of a person to individual freedom and the conception of private and public spaces as mutually exclusive spheres are the result of slow historical developments. The dominant definition of a situation as private or public as well as the extent to which people are in a position to protect their privacy are dimensions of gender relations. A form of cultural dominance of men can be observed in these negotiations about the private or public character of places. In terms of gender privacy, the public bath is the most private of female domains.
