Tunisia’s National Women’s Day is often associated with Habib Bourguiba, the country’s first president, who pursued the policy of state feminism. Bourguiba ruled the country for 30 years after its independence from France in 1957. In 1987 he was ousted in a coup d’etat by Zine El Abedine Ben Ali. Bourguiba’s state feminist policies earned him the moniker of the emancipator and liberator of Tunisian women.
But was he really their emancipator?
