The Tunisian woman has always known how stand out over time. In my opinion, no quality can describe her: strong, capable, responsible, dreamer … And the list is non-exhaustive.
Going back in time, Tunisia is a country that has been founded by women: starting with Queen Dido. Dido, is a Phoenician princess, legendary founder and first queen of Carthage. Arrived on the shores of North Africa, in present-day Tunisia, she founded the city of Carthage. According to legend, she would have burned herself to death so that she would not have to marry the sovereign of the land, Hiarbas. She founded Carthage by making an ingenious agreement with a Berber king. Indeed, she asked him to give him a land of the surface of a skin of beef that she cut into thin strips to put them end to end and delimit the location of the city.
Reviewing the history of Tunisia, we also notice the appearance of the warrior: Kahena.
The Kahena is a Zen Berber warrior queen of the Aures who fought the Umayyads during the Islamic expansion in North Africa in the seventh century. She was a Berber war queen who unified the Amazigh tribes to counter Islamic invasions. She won two battles against the Muslims and managed to rule the whole Ifriqiya for five years. She will be the only woman in history to fight the Umayyad empire.
The list of these women is way too long, but each one of them is nowadays witness of her time, and has contributed in her own way to the social, economic, but also political development of Tunisia.
As we see today, the privileged and unique status of Tunisian women in the Arab and Muslim world is mainly the work of an intellectual and political elite inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment. It is certain, however, that Tunisian society bore within itself the seeds of female liberation for having accepted and implemented the profound social reforms implied by the equality of men and women. Moreover, no regression has been made since the first promulgations of 1956. On the contrary, several stones have come, in recent years, to consolidate the foundation which devotes the centrality of the place of women in the work of national development.
Finally, it must be said that in Tunisia, the first generation of women decision makers is retiring in the current years. She led the way and showed that the glass ceiling could be pierced by imposing herself in a world of men. They pass the hand, hoping that those who follow will know how to preserve the advances and consolidate the image of significance, perseverance and capability of Tunisian women.
