Dorra Bouzid (Arabic: درة بوزيد; 1933 – 24 September 2023) was a Tunisian journalist, art critic, and feminist.[1][2][3]
Life edit
Dorra Bouzid was born in Sfax in 1933. After her father died, her mother Cherifa defied family expectation by moving to Nabeul in the early 1930s, riding a bicycle, teaching primary school and marrying the writer Mahmoud Messadi. Dorra and her sister were educated at a French lycée.[2]
In the late 1940s Bouzid studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tunis. However, her mother insisted she study pharmacy to be self-sufficient, and so she enrolled at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Paris in 1951. There she joined the North African Muslim Students Association, and helped organize a newspaper combining nationalism and syndicalism, before returning to Tunis to practice pharmacy.[2]
The editor of the nationalist newspaper L'Action recruited Bouzid to write a women's column, which became a full page entitled "Feminine Action'. In 1955 she published there a 'Call for Emancipation Law' demanding full rights for women. The following year Habib Bourguiba promulgated the Code of Personal Status, modernizing the law with regard to women. In 1959 Bouzid co-founded with Safia Farhet and became the head editor of the feminist magazine Faiza, the first African Arab feminist magazine.[4] In the early 1960s Dorra was sent by Bourguiba on an informal diplomatic mission to Morocco.[2]
Bouzid was the subject of a 2012 documentary by Walid Tayaa, Dorra Bouzid, une Tunisienne, un combat.[5]
Death edit
Dorra Bouzid died in La Marsa on 24 September 2023, at the age of 90.[6]
Works edit
- Ecole de Tunis: Un âge d'or de la peinture tunisienne, 1995
References edit
- ^ Clancy-Smith, Julia A. (2012). "Bouzid, Dorra (1933–)". In Akyeampong, Emmanuel Kwaku; Gates Jr., Henry Louis (eds.). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. pp. 514–6. ISBN 978-0-19-538207-5.
- ^ a b c d Clancy-Smith, Julia (2016). "From Household to Schoolroom: Women, Transnational Networks, and Education in North Africa and Beyond". In Patricia M. E. Lorcin; Todd Shepard (eds.). French Mediterraneans: Transnational and Imperial Histories. U of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-8875-1.
- ^ "Tunisie : Décès de la journaliste et militante féministe Dorra Bouzid". Gnet news. 25 September 2023. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
- ^ "Décès de Dorra Bouzid". Business News. 24 September 2023. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
- ^ Dorra Bouzid, une Tunisienne, un combat
- ^ "Décès de la journaliste Dorra Bouzid: La doyenne du journalisme féminin en Tunisie tire sa révérence". La Presse. 25 September 2023. Retrieved 26 September 2023.