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Nima Mesbahi

Abstract

In 2012, Amina Filali, a young Moroccan teenager killed herself after a judge had ruled for her to marry her rapist. Drawing from the story of Amina, this paper will contextualize the event in its broader scope analyzing the international and national discourses surrounding the case, reminiscent of orientalist discourses that constantly portray the “Muslim woman” as a victim of Islam. Through a careful reading of the text of law, I will show that the clause 475 of the penal code is in fact a Napoleonic law adopted in verbatim rather than an Islamic tradition. Through an analysis of a documentary on the story of Amina, I am interested in the untold story that reveals the ways through which the women of the village are able to navigate along power lines within the patriarchal system. I am concerned with a media representation that offers a monolithic representation of these women as victims of their husbands, as companions; as well as the homogeneous portrayals of the societies and the legal system itself.

Author Biography

Nima Mesbahi is a graduate student at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Qatar. Her research interests include but are not limited to: gender, identity/alterity, security, state/sovereignty in its relations of gender, intersectionality and positionality.

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