Gender
International audience ; The protests which have been ongoing in North-African countries since February 2011 have contributed towards giving visibility to that component of society often neglected by the dominant male model: women. Female bodies occupied not only the front covers of important magazines (Libération, n.9253, 12th-13th February 2011; Los Angeles Times, Saturday 12th February), but also a traditional male space: the public space. This media visibility of women has given new food for thought on gender issues as well as on issues concerning dominating relationships that the ever reigning patriarchal system continues to perpetrate on a global level.Assuming that in most of these societies such relationships largely determine people's roles and lives, can one speak of a specificity in the Mediterranean setting? The predominant image of the Mediterranean world is that of a closed context, refractory to transformation, anchored in sexist traditions and still a long way from effective equality and access to politics and positions of power. Just such a stereotype, legitimized by Anglo-Saxon traditional studies and research on the Mediterranean city (c.f. Minca 2004) and still commonly predominant, has been put into question by the active role played by women in social movements which have lately taken place in the whole of the Mediterranean basin1. The pictures of women engaged in protest and demonstration have gone around the world. However, what do the women of the Arab awakening and the Spanish indignados women2 have in common? The presence of their bodies on town squares and streets. Virtual space has also held a starring role in the protests. The role of technology and the network in social and political change has been vastly covered both in scientific contexts (e.g. Paradiso 2003, 2006) and in popular contexts; particular reference can be made to the Green Wave in Iran (Mouillard 2009; Hare and Darani 2010). Furthermore, with the 2011 protests, attention has been focused specifically on the relation ...