The recovery of pre-Islamic female icons in Tunisia. Identity strategies between past and present

Abstract

The stereotyped and reified representation of the Arab woman, daughter of
Orientalism, continues to permeate the imagery even among the school
desks through Italian textbooks. In sharp contrast to this simplistic and stigmatized
representation of the Arab woman, the young Tunisians have a very
deep degree of awareness about the path of emancipation that led the
women of their country, many years ago, to see their rights guaranteed, and
which today they can enjoy.
Precisely in order to distinguish itself and distance itself from the rest of the
Arab world and phenomena related to a return of traditional Islam under
the guise of modernity, Tunisia has re-enacted and revalued the cultural
heritage of antiquity, placing its vestiges in an ancestral past and anchoring
it to the Mediterranean.