Dr. Prantik Biswas, Assistant Professor (Grade-II) in French, Amity School of Foreign Languages, Amity University Kolkata, E-mail : prantikbiswas91@gmail.com
Abstract:
This paper, titled Between Faith and Freedom: Feminist Negotiations in the Selected Texts of Leïla Slimani, examines the complex interplay between religious conservatism and feminist resistance in Slimani’s writings. Through a critical analysis of Sexe et mensonges : La vie sexuelle au Maroc (2017) and Le pays des autres (2020), the study explores how religious frameworks shape and regulate women’s lives across generations in the Moroccan context. Slimani’s narratives reveal the pervasive influence of patriarchal interpretations of religion, particularly in governing female sexuality and social agency.
Drawing on feminist theoretical approaches, the paper analyses how moral codes rooted in religious discourse constrain women’s bodies and voices, especially in Sexe et mensonges: La vie sexuelle au Maroc, where testimonies expose the living realities of Moroccan women. In Le pays des autres, the character of Mathilde navigates intersecting structures of power, moving between colonial Catholic influences in France and Islamic patriarchal norms in Morocco. While Christianity is associated with colonial authority, Islam emerges as both a site of cultural resistance and a mechanism that simultaneously reinforces gender hierarchies.
By situating Slimani’s work within a postcolonial feminist framework, this study highlights the tension between faith and female autonomy, demonstrating how women negotiate, resist, and reconfigure religious constraints in their pursuit of freedom.
Keywords: religion, feminism, Islam, postcolonialism, women, Morocco
Introduction:
Both the novels written by Leïla Slimani, Sexe et mensonges: La vie sexuelle au Maroc (Sex and Lies : The sexual life in Morocco) and Le pays des autres (The country of Others) are primarily based on feminism that the author has pointed out several times through different prisms out of which the religion is one them that played a key role in her novels. The novels are recording serious discrimination, exploitation, deprivation and injustice towards women that the female characters are displaying going through the stories. These malpractices are definitely leaving a negative impact on women which are being executed by patriarchy, and the patriarchal system is governed by religion. In the stories, so many social taboos are having been imposed on women and it can be clearly seen that how the Islamic conservatism is playing a crucial role to be an obstacle to the development of women that they are being suppressed, cornered in the society and consequently women are being positioned in the back foot.
The first chosen book Sexe et mensonges: La vie sexuelle au Maroc (Sex and Lies : The sexual life in Morocco) is a non-fiction by nature where Slimani has recorded interviews and testimonies by various women expressing their sexual desire and how they are being deterred directly from belonging to the same strata (of men) in the society. During the promotion of her first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogre (2016) the author had been in Morocco where she encountered the women of different ages with different orientation of sexes; a good number of interviews with those women is clearly projecting the plight of women that how they are being controlled and regulated by the patriarchy following the Islamic command and sometimes distorting the Islamic philosophy for their own interest.
In the second novel Le pays des autres (The country of Others) we are finding a lucid description of the life of a woman named Mathilde in post-colonial Morocco. Mathilde is basically hailing from Alsace a region in France; she met Amine, a Moroccan soldier, combatting for France during the Liberation war; later she got married to him and shifted to Morocco, the land of her husband. She was born and brought up in a Christian catholic family but since her husband Amine was Muslim, she got into a conservative Muslim family and society in Morocco. Since her childhood Mathilde was continuing her life with progressive thoughts and beliefs and suddenly when she is in such a society, she started to feel suffocated as her open, liberal, progressive thoughts are being curbed by the Islamic command and that too is going through her daughter Aïcha as well.
When we academically treat feminism and religion it never can be stated that any religion has direct negative impact on the progression of women even, we never can find any diktat or any saying that goes against women; rather it’s a secret or hidden politics of patriarchy. It’s a serious dispute between two genders – male and female; and this very dispute rather a social competition fans this politics where religion is being exploited as a medium and a weapon to curb the rights of women.
In our society, religion has become an instrument for controlling women’s bodies. (Dans notre société, la religion s’est transformée en instrument de contrôle du corps des femmes.) (Slimani, p. 18)
This line in Sexe et mensonges: La vie sexuelle au Maroc (Sex and Lies : The sexual life in Morocco) is going to be a crucial marker for indicating clearly what this analysis is going to decipher. Therefore, here it is very clear that religion is not here being considered a spiritual idea rather it is becoming a social weapon by which the patriarchy is policing female sexuality. In the name of religion, the society is taking control of women’s body that women should follow the social codes set by men and they are preaching the same resorting to religion.
Religion, the clan, the family – everything conspired to keep women on their knees. (La religion, le clan, la famille, tout conspirait pour maintenir les femmes à genoux.) (Slimani, p. 143)
Again, this line in Le pays des autres (The country of Others) is giving us way to understand how women are kept in the second category of the society, and we can also find here that how even a family is cornering women in the society. In Moroccan context, the society, the family, the religion almost every social institution is driven by patriarchal spirit and fuelled by masculine command. However, directly pointing the religion would not be a wise venture to undertake this analysis, men take refuge of religion to dominate women since religion is a spiritual phenomenon and moreover it’s an easy universal medium to reach people.
To analyse this subject that how religion is being utilised as a tool to subordinate women compared to men by the patriarchy two key feminist theories that of Judith Butler and Fatima Mernissi are to be deployed to prove once again the importance and pertinence of feminism in this regard. Judith Butler’s gender performativity and religious normativity is a pertinent concept which will be satisfying the problematic of this research and another important idea of Fatima Mernissi on Islamic feminism and the politics of sexuality will equally be coming into play to give an impetus to this research.
Analysis:
In the non-fiction Sexe et mensonges: La vie sexuelle au Maroc (Sex and Lies : The sexual life in Morocco), Leïla Slimani discovers a sound tension between feminism and religion (especially Islam in Moroccan context) referring to the plight and negative experience of women in the patriarchal society. This novel is based particularly on the testimonies of Moroccan women from different places; the interviews with the author herself is exposing how religious and social norms are rooted in Islam which often disrupts women’s sexual autonomy and sentiments by creating a disorientation in faith, culture and women’s liberal thoughts. If for controlling and regulating women’s movements in a particular society at every step or as a final ultimatum the religious references are resorted to then definitely a misconception is born towards that particular religion and in this case, it is Islam.
Slimani being originated from Morocco shows through her novel how religion is being exploited as moral and patriarchal tool to curb the behaviour of women and to impose social restrictions on them in the name of religion. When she refers to Moroccan society, she always points it out that it is ever obsessed by the body of women as the Islamic interpretations, not directly from the scriptures, determine how women should wear, how they should conduct and how they should love or like. It clearly indicates that in this society women’s choices have no value, they have no saying over their own body rather they should act as per the direction of men.
When it comes sexual intercourse in Moroccan with to this novel, it is said that outside marriage any sort of sexual intercourse is prohibited but appears as the worst is in this prohibition there is gender biasness. If a man breaches this order there is no social denunciation or any legal punishment rather his maltreatment is tolerated in most of the cases but if the same committed by a woman she is pointed by the society, she should face the harshness of society and sometimes she must go through the legal actions.
Religion becomes a weapon against women, a medium for controlling their desire and their liberty. (La religion devient une arme contre les femmes, un moyen de contrôler leur désir et leur liberté.) (Slimani, p. 32)
This line clearly suggests that religion is a social phenomenon, and it has not been practiced spiritually; religion is a tool, is a medium of the politics of patriarchy where it is not directly involved but is being utilised for the interest of men to corroborate male dominance instead of moral or spiritual purity.
The suggestion of the above is satisfying the theoretical ideas of Judith Butler on gender performativity and social control in his famous book Gender Trouble (1990) that
Gender is not innate but performed through repeated cultural norms; power operates through the repetition of these performances. (Butler, p. 179)
In Morocco, religious and social orders are governed by the patriarchy and they are compelling women to follow and practice the religious rituals, to keep their chastity and piety up of course hiding their personal and biological desires. Therefore, Butler helps to establish the feminism of Slimani with reference to this very novel as a criticism of performative hypocrisy; the religious code is finalising how women should act by regular practice and performances. In the description of the book Slimani once stated Tout le monde ment. (Slimani, p. 22) that means everyone lies; here everyone denotes the society, more explicitly, the society lies about women, their truth about women is not expressed freely in the society; and this very statement is again drawing its relevance from Butler’s regulatory ideals that makes women bound to follow the established norms by practice.
In Le pays des autres (The country of Others), through the character of Mathilde Leïla Slimani has shown that there is complex in relationship between feminism and religion that Mathilde is basically from France who brought up in a Christian catholic family but right after her marriage she came to Morocco in a Muslim household. She could hardly cope up initially with this culture, society and environment which were totally new to her and very difficult to accept the practice of Islam. Since her arrival in post-colonial Morocco after its independence in 1956 being married to a soldier she went through the disputes and tussles of different cultural, religious and colonial facts. In the story, feminism is represented through the character of Mathilde, and the religion is represented through Islam; at every step Mathilde is facing various social and familial challenges triggered by patriarchy.
Slimani describes in the story religious practices and social norms which are really creating hurdles not only for Mathilde but also for the entire community of women. To lead their own life, they always need to wait for the permission of their superior, in terms of gender – the male; and as they are the sole authority to control their subordinate, they made them puppets as women are to act according to their decision. Women are confined only in domestic and private sphere, they have no right to be open in the outer world; their choice, their desire have always been curbed by the male authority. Religious norms and social command are taking the hold of women’s sexuality, conduct and modesty; religion is saying about the protection and safety of human race irrespective of any gender but in the name this protection, patriarchy is exploiting women by deferring their education, their profession, their political involvement and all other social participation. Mathilde being a western progressive woman feels really trapped in this society and the situation restricts and limits her rights and self-esteem.
She didn’t understand why a woman always had to lower her eyes, keep quiet, obey. (Elle ne comprenait pas pourquoi il fallait toujours qu’une femme baisse les yeux, qu’elle se taise, qu’elle obéisse.) (Slimani, p. 154)
Through this very line Slimani wanted to show the frustration, resentment and dissatisfaction about the status of women in Morocco where everything is controlled by the social norms which are deeply rooted into religion. Here, all the religious orders are to be complied by women only, however, Islam never saying directly about the confinement of women, it has never been against the progression of women but the preacher of it is misinterpreting the idea for their vested interest.
In this regard we can easily relate the theory of harem by Fatema Mernissi; according to Mernissi harem is not only a physical space rather it’s a symbolic boundary that is distancing women’s private space from men’s public sphere. Mernissi in her book Le Harem Politique (1987), clearly distinguished Islam from male-centered interpretations of Qur’an and Hadith. In the ancient days, Islam used to give enough space to women to enjoy their social and spiritual equality but later the male dominance distorted the actual ideology of Islam for to protect their own interest.
It was not Islam that locked up women, it was men who locked up Islam. (Ce n’est pas l’islam qui a enfermé les femmes, ce sont les hommes qui ont enfermé l’islam.) (Mernissi)
In Le pays des autres, the religion is playing the role of a weapon to control the behaviour, modesty and spirit of women; here Slimani echoes the voice of Mernissi and her theoretical idea is getting satisfied by what Slimani exactly wanted to covey to her readers that religion itself is not the oppressor and is not directly responsible for women’s plight but it’s the patriarchy what is using the religion to keep women in the second category of the society and not to let them supersede their status.
Conclusion:
Sexe et mensonges: La vie sexuelle au Maroc and Le pays des autres are the two famous novels written by Leïla Slimani which reflect the action of feminism advocating for women’s sentiments against conservative religious dogmas established by patriarchy. In the first novel Slimani described the situation of women she interviewed with where we receive various sexual facts of women which are natural, but they cannot express them in the society since women’s sexuality is a taboo in post-colonial Morocco. How religious command tends to rule women and to regulate female sentiments has been well exhibited in the novel; and this intention of regulation through religion is an outcome of social normative practice; as the proof of Butler’s theory of gender performativity has been deployed. The second novel is dealing with the life of Mathilde after her marriage with Amine; in the story her feminist sentiment is intertwined with colonialism, society and religion. She is basically catholic Christian background but after getting into life of Amine she had to plunge into the Muslim community where male is the ultimate voice be it right or wrong it’s the ultimatum and women ought to conform it. However, religion itself does not exclude women from the mainstream of society, but its preachers are distorting the scriptures for the sake of their interest; and this hypocrisy has been satisfied by Mernissi’s theory of politics of harem.
Bibliography:
- Slimani, Leïla. Sexe et Mensonges : La Vie Sexuelle Au Maroc. Paris Les Arènes, 2017.
- Slimani, Leïla. Le Pays Des Autres. 1 Sept. 2020.
- Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York, Routledge, 1990.
- Mernissi, Fatema. Le harem politique : Le Prophète et les femmes. Albin Michel, 1987.
Bio-note : Dr. Prantik Biswas is currently working as an Assistant Professor (Grade-II) in French in Amity School of Foreign Languages, Amity University Kolkata. He has completed his Ph.D in Department of French, Assam University, Silchar. His domain of research involves the works of Leïla Slimani, a francophone writer. He got published his research works in various journals, books and presented papers in several National and International Conferences.