CAES Morocco: Leading Across Differences

  In Morocco, gender roles are woven into everyday life. Cafés often teem with men, while women move quietly through more private spaces. Visiting a rural community, I noticed men leading conversations while women tended fields or stayed to the side—present but seldom heard. Yet identity expresses itself subtly. Two teenage girls laughing arm-in-arm on a quiet street revealed how closeness needn’t defy norms. In their world, that gentle gesture was simply friendship, not a statement. I spoke once with a Moroccan student about sexual orientation. He described a careful silence—an awareness shaped by laws and cultural restraints. Same-sex relationships remain criminalized, punishable by prison time pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov+2pure.eur.nl+2asrjetsjournal.org+2 teenvogue.com . His words carried no bitterness, only a quiet acceptance that openness was out of reach, and that change would unfold slowly. Morocco’s conversations on gender and identity aren’t loud—they’re seen in small gestures, ...

  I feel that my time in Morocco challenged me to think beyond my initial perceptions of things and to approach each experience from a different perspective. Before this trip, I did not know that this country was a predominantly Islamic nation, but I did have previous conceptions about what an Islamic country might be like. Apart from the rules of modesty, I believed that women were seen as more like property, not given the same rights as men. The first day I landed in Morocco, and had the opportunity to walk around, I was with a small group of girls. As we walked around, we began to notice how many men lined the streets, occupied cafes, drove in their cars— we saw strikingly few women and began to feel somewhat uneasy. When we did see a few women, they were often accompanied by men, with a few exceptions of tourists, and we immediately began to draw conclusions about the country’s politics and values. We suspected that there were so few women because they were simply not allowed o...

 This beautiful picture captures the essence of Morocco and its hospitality. Our guide was very eager to show Eric the kitchen where the food was being prepped. He took his hand and guided him all the way to the destination. This type of touch is uncommon for men in the United States or at least in my local community. This simple touch hold great value of friendship, reverence, and love. During our time in Morocco, it became noticeable that the Moroccan people love physical touch. There were several times where pairs of men would be holding hands, have locked elbows, or be holding on by the shoulders. The connection seemed natural and accepted.  This connection makes me think of gender roles in terms of acceptable behavior of said gender. In the United States men are surrounded by the stereotype of what it means to be masculine, which I believe persist everywhere to some degree. However, it was interesting to see the difference of masculinity between the States and Morocco. If...

      Gender roles seem to be very much imposed in Morocco. Moroccan culture is heavily, if not mainly, influenced by Islam. Islamic culture says that men provide everything in exchange for their wives’ total support. This system was not designed to be one of subservience by women, but powerful and/or loud men have bastardized the equal give and take that it was meant to be. For generations women have been put down and silenced and abused. They couldn’t have their own money or land or home or family or identity without a husband or a father, and to the rest of the world that is how they are and have always been.               However, on our very first tour in Casablanca, our guide educated us on how far Morocco has come in the fight for women’s autonomy. She said it was thanks to their current king  Mohammed VI. He has been reigning since 1999, and is beloved country-wide. King Mohammed VI has made known his stance on wom...

  Motherhood & Morocco All life comes from women. This is a fact we all know and see the evidence of daily, yet it is also a fact we choose to ignore or employ only when it is of convenience to society. Women are the backbone, the lifeblood, the prana, and the chi of all life. As we endure heartbreak, trauma, and illness, we call out for our mothers. As men die on battlefields and in army hospitals, they yearn for a touch of their mother. Across cultures, the mother figure is a respected tenet of the community, and in Morocco’s Argan Cooperative, the motherhood experience is respected and supported.  Though the history of feminism in Morocco is varied and contains times of both celebration and tension, yet the importance of family has remained a central tenet.  At the Argan oil cooperative, women bring the fruit from their argan trees into the cooperative, weigh, process and eventually, sell them for cosmetics and food oils. In this system, women own their own trees a...

In Morocco, gender roles are very much still skewed to benefit the male population and a patriarchal society. When I landed in Casablanca, I noticed this with the amount of men outside. In fact, while visiting the Hasan II Mosque at night that day, most of the women and children left the area at sunset, leaving only men outside. For me, this signified the patriarchal nature of Moroccan society. Having had experience with Muslim gender roles in the United States, I had a basic idea of how life at home likely is for women in Morocco. But, I was more interested in whether there has been progress for them, especially in terms of employment and economic growth.  According to Lisa Kolovich and Anta Ndoye’s book, Morocco’s Quest for Stronger and Inclusive Growth , there is a much higher unemployment rate for women than for men in Morocco. The book also cites the World Values Survey, which found that a majority of participants agreed with the statement that “Men should have more right to a...