NEW YORK — Serving up a women’s rights movement retrospective with a dollop of harissa, a New York celebration of feminism last month had a distinctly Tunisian kick.

Director of the NYC Tunisian Cultural and Information Center Naima Remadi speaks during a celebration of Tunisian Women’s Day in New York on Aug. 20.

The NYC Tunisian Cultural and Information Center, joined by Tunisia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Ghazi Jomaa, commemorated that nation’s Women’s Day on Aug. 20 with a banquet honoring the achievements of prominent local Arab American women.
Officially on Aug. 13, the holiday marks the 1956 signing of the Code of Personal Status, outlawing polygamy and heralding a host of other groundbreaking women’s rights initiatives, signed by founding president of the post-colonial republic Habib Bourguiba.

International Women’s Day, as proclaimed by the United Nations in 1975, is on March 8. Some in the Arab world believe Tunisia should celebrate Women’s Day with the international community, while others argue that the country’s unique holiday and own brand of feminism puts the small North African nation on the map.

Asked about the significance of Tunisia celebrating its own women’s day, Ambassador Jomaa said the holiday reflects Tunisia’s women’s rights movement as homegrown.

Tunisian Ambassador to the United Nations Ghazi Jomaa

“Any change has to come from inside a culture,” Jomaa said. “If it comes from examples from the U.S. or elsewhere imposing a model, it won’t fit. There’s no perfect model in all sectors.”
Since the holiday’s inception in 1956, the Tunisian government has positioned itself at the forefront of feminism in the Arab and Muslim world.

In 2000, Tunisia’s External Communication Agency reported that women are present “in all fields and all sectors of society,” and that women comprise 50.4 percent of Tunisia’s university students and 21 percent of all civil servants. Tunisian first lady Leila Ben Ali heads the Arab Women’s Organization, and outspoken Arab women’s rights activists like Nawal El-Saadawi laud Tunisia’s efforts to protect its women’s reproductive and social rights.

In a preface to the English edition of El-Saadawi’s 1977 treatise on women in Arab society, the Egyptian feminist wrote that Western imposition of foreign models for the empowerment of women in Middle Eastern societies often result in more repressive practices.

For Jomaa and Saadawi, a national Women’s Day represents Tunisia’s and perhaps the Arab world’s movement to empower women without Western involvement.

While acknowledging Tunisia’s achievements as pioneering Arab women’s rights movements, one banquet attendee, Egyptian native Soad Mansour, believes all nations should observe the United Nations’ Women’s Day.

“Everyone should obvserve International Women’s Day… Women should be treated [well] and given the same rights everywhere,” he said.

Zina El Gheribi, daughter of an award recipient at the banquet, argued that Tunisian Women’s Day came first, saying it means more to her as a Tunisian from a long line of strong women. At the age of 20, her mother was among the first to employ the Code of Personal Status’ liberalized divorce laws.

“Tunisian men have a lot of respect for women,” she said. “Tunisian women have a special personality trait: determined, persistent, natural leadership.”

For El Gheribi, empowerment and national identity are inextricably linked.

Others argue still that there remains much progress to be made in gaining rights for Tunisian women. One government report shows that in 1999, only 38 percent of Tunisian women between the ages of 25 and 29 worked.

A group of Tunisian bloggers who support celebrating the March 8 International Women’s Day over the Tunisian version write that Tunisian men still sexually objectify women, and that many women spent Tunisian Women’s Day preparing food ahead of Ramadan.

NYC Tunisian Cultural and Information Center Director Naima Remadi acknowledged that while Tunisia may be ahead of the pack, “we women have a long way to go before we achieve perfect equality.”