eRes Course Resources

Being Moroccan myself, I thought it would be useless to ask an american all these questions about gender role since you already know the answers. Thus, I decided to let you learn more about my culture. I carefully chose one of my closest friends who still live in Morocco and asked him some questions about gender roles in society. What are the social roles of women? It is commonly believed that muslim cultures force the women to stay at home and take care of the households. It is partially true in Morocco, the women will stay at home, take care of the children, waiting for ahusband if she does not have one yet. However, the modernization and the influence of the western culture lead the society to a new familial model. Women look for jobs, they work and some of them prefer to stay single. Do man and women socialize together? It is a very sensible point in Morocco. It is actually taboo to see a man and a women even holding hands in the streets. It may be shocking but that is the truth ! People usually socialize indoors, never in the public space except in very modern places like the cinema or the malls. What happens when a person acts in a role unexpected of his or her gender? There is no such things as tolerance in Morocco. Maybe within the upperclasses, homosexuality or other taboos may be understood due to the influence of the western culture, but it is commonly not accepted in society to see a man or a women acting differently. These people will be discriminated against (family, jobs, friends), in some extrem and rare cases physically harmed.