Vanessa Maher

Articles for DWF

Books reviewed by DWF


Articles for DWF


Labour, consumption and authority in the family community in Morocco, 1982, n. 22, pp. 23-41

The case here considered is the Moroccan one, and especially that of its rural society. From the anthropological point of view Islam is not seen as a determining factor of this society and of women's position within it.

Even though the analysis is very well documented, it is most interesting for its theoretical aspect. In the first place the impact of development models on women's condition must be underlined, thus setting the issue of women in an international picture, beside the regional and local ones.

On the other hand the actual and structural relationship must be examined, among others, between what is considered woman's traditional role (marriage, maternity, etc.) and her possible economic role in specific situations and contexts, such as the family community.

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Solidarities, 1982, n. 22. Suppl., pp. 27-36

The author, who is an anthropologist, sets the concept of solidarity, a value and constant reference for women's movement, against the different kinds of relationship between women as they emerged in European societies in the past twenty years.

After analysing non-European cultures as well as our everyday practices, she concludes that both sexual segregation and non-segregation as such are not enough to ensure women's stronger social presence or their increased power in negotiations. In this sense women's aims and the nature of their mutual relations are undeniably more important.

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Books reviewed by DWF


MAHER Vanessa, Women and property in Morocco: their changing relation to the process of social stratification in the Middle Atlas, Cambridge University Press, 1974
rev. by Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, Y. I, 1976, n. 4, pp. 172-176


MAHER Vanessa, Il potere della complicità. Conflitti e legami delle donne nordafricane
, Torino, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1989
rev. by Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, 1991, n. 13-14, p. 108


MAHER Vanessa (edited by), Il latte materno. Condizionamenti culturali di un comportamento
, Torino, Rosenberg & Sellier, 1992
rev. by Annalisa Marino, 1996, n. 30-31, pp. 102-104

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