Literary Review

Abby Collins Professor Moody Morocco HUA January 29, 2020

Cafe Culture and the Intricacies of 
Navigating Public Space as a Woman in Morocco

The way a Moroccan woman can move and present herself in a public space is differently complex compared to her American counterpart. Women are not barred from taking up space in public but are affected by different institutional gender structures and heavy Islamic influence. “Allowable” public movement and presentation for Moroccan women are results of affluent and religious dependent dynamics between men and women, reinforced by age, class, and region. I want to observe how women from different regions, age groups, and social classes interact amongst themselves and with those around them in a culture that supports the ideology that public spaces are the “man’s domain.” I will later define what public and private spaces mean in a Moroccan context in order to support my observations and to speculate on why things are the way they are. In addition to this I will provide evidence as to why public settings are seen as an all boys club and how this is starting to change. I cannot claim to write a Moroccan woman’s experience as I am not one, but I can observe interactions and engage in conversations to gain a better understanding of what it is like. Rachel Newcomb had a similar outlook for her research in Women of Fes where she had said that it is her attempt “to mark out and analyze the subtle area between what [she] witnessed and what people told [her]” because it is the only claim she could validly make. 

To begin to contextualize why women, especially those who are less affluent or from more conservative areas/cities, tend not to take up space you need to understand the Islamic notion that reinforces this. According to Shampa Mazumdar and Sanjoy Mazumdar, the idea that “the street is strictly the man’s domain” is derived from the Islamic notion of mahram and na-mahram, who is forbidden to marry and who is not. It is the interaction with na-mahram, those of the opposite sex who are suitable for marriage, that makes spaces in Morocco so relatively different. Because this creates such an intricate map for women to follow when navigating public spaces, we begin to see where Islam starts to heavily intertwine with Moroccan culture. It is not common for a Moroccan woman to talk about mahram and na-mahram specifically, but these terms are still used and the implications are ingrained into the way Moroccan society functions. 

It is not as simple as defining private spaces as the home and public spaces are those that are not. It is the types of interactions that can occur in a space which implies this definition. For example, a “public” space can be considered a private sphere of influence for women until an unknown male enters the room. Inversely, a “private” space, such as one’s home, can become a public space when guests are invited by the male head of house, specifically. When one is sharing space and has the ability to interact with someone of the opposite sex, the space becomes restricted for both parties. This also explains why practicing Muslim women who choose to veil become relatively “freer.” It is this notion of the na-mahrem that necessitates a veil to be worn when in the presence of an unrelated male. Other women and family members are mahrem, so they are not restricted by a possible suitor.  To elaborate on how a “public” space can be a “private” space as mentioned earlier, the first and only women’s cafe in Morocco recently opened in Tetouan. Flower Cafe opened its doors in mid-November 2019 and “offers customers a range of facilities and social activities, such as a reading space with a library, live music, and a karaoke session every weekend.” Store owner Ikram Ben El Khalil wanted to provide a place where women can feel “comfortable” and “can remove their headscarves if they feel like it”. Since men are not allowed to enter the space and there are no males servers, the space is technically defined as private as women can not interact with any mahrem. 

Islam is not the only factor in defining the function and flowability of a space. One has to also consider class, age, and wealth, just to name a few. Rachel Necomb’s artice “Gendering the City, Gendering the Nation: Contesting Urban Space in Fes, Morocco” explores the rules that pervade a Muslim woman’s experience in a public, urban setting. Her article focuses on Fes specifically which provides a unique perspective of different spaces that a women can be in in a very conservative part of Morocco. Newcomb starts her article with a Moroccan proverb stating “He who takes his wife in public divorces her,” which I feel really sets the tone for societal expectations of practicing Muslim women. Newcomb continues on to say that it is common to see a college age woman sit in a cafe to study, even talk to and flirt with other male students, while a typical business woman would greet her male colleague yet sit at another table.  I would disagree with Rachel Newcomb in saying that students use cafes as an entryway that leads to flirting. In my observations so far, the most affectionate I saw a young couple get was sitting on the same side of the table and lightly touching each other. I sat upstairs in a cafe near one of the universities in Rabat and most people chose to sit by themselves, there was one larger group as well and one other couple. It was easy to pick up on that most people were there with the intention to study, and the other couple in the cafe remained neutral. They sat and talked for a while over tea and coffee but kept away from any obvious signs of public displays of affection. 

Class and affluence has the ability to remove a lot of rules and boundaries for Moroccan women. Similar to America, being more affluent allows you to bend the rules and do more of what you please. I was in Rabat when I saw the few couples sitting at the cafe, which is a much more modern and progressive city. When I was in Fes on the other hand, known as one of the most conservative cities in Morocco, almost any other young woman I saw in public or sitting in a cafe was one of my peers. I experienced this jarring lack of women day or night, regardless of if I was in the medina or not. There was even one evening where I got ice cream with my roommate in a nicer part of Fes with hotels nearby and we were the only women in the entire establishment. 

This class and affluence divide is what allows women to break away from conservativeness and tradition and do something that can be interpreted as “modern” or “bold.” I would not claim that there is a divide in religious practices in these cities, but I would say that the aforementioned two grant women some freedom to choose how they display their religion. Those who live in poorer areas such as the medina are not granted these same freedoms. Without trying to generalize on their experience, I have found that women from poorer areas cling to tradition more than upper and middle class women because they are much more likely to receive backlash from their family or the community. In Casablanca Calling, a documentary about the reintroduction of Morchidat in rural parts of Morocco, women of all ages dressed traditionally and wore a veil while in public. Being in Rabat I have seen everything from conservative yet modern dress to ripped jeans and a leather jacket, and these choices were independent of if she was wearing a veil or not. I have begun to pick up on some trends of how women who veil versus those who do not move differently through public spaces, but again I do not want to generalize on their experience so I am going to leave it out for now.

There is not just one Moroccan woman and not just one experience. Women of different classes and ages will have different beliefs and experiences with public and private spheres, and every woman in any category will have some type of individualistic experience. No experience should be invalidated for being unique, but should rather be highlighted and looked into how it relates to other experiences, laws, religion, and culture. Public spaces for women in Morocco are divided into many subcategories that tend to work together to try to exclude them. Women of higher class have much more accessibility to places where they are welcomed than lower class women, and the lack of women in a space can make it intimidating and unwelcoming, even for me. A combination of religious influence and male entitlement are common driving factors in deterring women from the streets towards their homes. There are many different interpretations of what a space is and who can use it, but as of now the public is still “the man’s space” and it is clear to see that some women want to change this and reclaim their position in society.

 Works Cited 

Chafai, Habiba. “Contextualising Street Sexual Harassment in Morocco: a Discriminatory Sociocultural Representation of Women.” in The Journal of North African Studies 22, no. 5 (2017): 821– 840. https://doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2017.1364633.

Kasraoui, Safaa. “Women-Only Cafe Opens in Northern Morocco.” Morocco World News, December 27, 2019. https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/12/289923/women-only-cafe-flower-tetouan/.

Mazumdar, Shampa, and Mazumdar, Sanjoy. “RETHINKING PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE: RELIGION AND WOMEN IN MUSLIM SOCIETY.” in Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 18, no. 4 (2001): 302-24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43031047.

Newcomb, Rachel. “Gendering the City, Gendering the Nation: Contesting Urban Space in Fes, Morocco.” City & Society 18, no. 2 (2006): 288–311. doi.org/10.1525/city.2006.18.2.288.

Newcomb, Rachel. Women of Fes. ; Ambiguities of Urban Life in Morocco. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.

Rogers, Rosa. Casablanca Calling. Online. Directed by Rosa Rogers. New York City: Women Make Movies, 2014.