COUNTRY REPORT: Tunisia

Some 98 percent of Tunisia's roughly 10.4 million inhabitants are Muslim.1 Tunisian society, as with all societies in the Arab world, was long characterized by clear differences between the roles of men and women, a distinction that was sanctifi ed by religious texts and beliefs. Education, for both women and men, has been the main driver of social change. In the early
20th century, some urban families began to educate their daughters, and this trend gained a forceful momentum after independence. Today, the younger generations of women are as educated as their male counterparts and equally capable of participating in the economic life of the country as well as in decision making in all domains. Despite considerable progress,
however, a cultural tendency to consider boys superior to girls and superior to women largely persists within the social landscape.