Journal Articles

Constructing Arab Female Leadership Lessons from the Moroccan Media

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How the Arab media construct Middle Eastern women as political actors, frame their leadership roles, and narrate their activities to the public are important questions largely ignored in the growing scholarship on women’s political participation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s reflections on the politics of recognition and distribution (2007), I examine the construction of women’s leadership in Morocco during the four-month period leading to the local elections of June 2009. Analysis of 1,738 news items from five print media sources reveals that the “symbolic annihilation” of political women, a thesis traditionally applied to Western contexts, is disturbingly robust in Morocco. The Moroccan case alerts us that institutional mechanisms supporting women’s leadership might begin to address gender biases in the distribution of political power, but they do not guarantee the recognition of gender equality in the cultural sphere of knowledge production and opinion formation. Struggles over gender equity in Morocco and elsewhere in MENA should engage more fully with the politics of recognition given the disjuncture between women’s leadership competences and achievements and the dominant ideological frames constructing women’s leadership.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Gender & Society

Call Number

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Publisher

Thousand Oak : sage publisher., 2011

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

08912432

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Vol. 25 no. 4, August 2011.pp. 473-495

Subject(s)

Gender
Leadership
Media
Politics
Recognition
Constructing Arab Female Leadership

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