Hassiba ben Bouali, If you could see our Algeria [Ressource électronique] : women and public space in Algeria

This article focuses on the restriction of the social freedom of Muslim women in Algeria. The interplay between society's spatial arrangements and the status of women reveals much about the ideological underpinnings of the Algerian state since independence. The violent deaths of women that are now being reported can be understood as a consequence of a specific policy of National Liberation Front which entailed encouragement of women's presence in two new arenas of public space, the school and the factory. This has been a shocking innovation to Muslim traditionalists. In religious terms, women's presence is deemed illegitimate, haram. Socially they are perceived as intruders into masculine space, disturbing the equilibrium of a regulated, single-sex, urban milieu. The short history of working women in Algeria has therefore been a troubled one. Even within factory spaces, the possibility of men and women working together has been avoided. The daily activities and individual behavior of women workers are shaped by structures that insure men's exercise of power over women. Thus, for complex historical, economic and religious reasons, both women and men subscribe to economic and spatial arrangements that reinforce the legitimacy of women's lower status. Exacerbating the issue is the pressure being laid upon women to conform to norms of Islamic dress, and to wear the veil even in indoor workplaces. In Algeria today, the veil under discussion is not the traditional North African haik but rather the hijab. Those who opposed to the norm are being targeted by radicals. They are assassinated because they are women working women, unveiled women and women active in social and political associations.