'Women in Djellabas Vote Separately': Gendered and Religious Space in French Algeria, 1944-1962

This paper considers the history of the creation of gendered and religious political space by examining the development of gender segregated voting booths in the last years of French colonial Algeria. In the late colonial period, the discussion of women’s political status within an imperial framework took on increasing importance within discussions about legitimacy, sovereignty, and self-determination. Ideas about the degree to which Muslim women could be considered French Republican citizens with full political rights were often based on assumptions of these women’s “essential” religious nature, language which often conflated religious practice with ideas about racial identity. Although French republicanism posited the public sphere as inherently universalist and secular, the figure of the “indigenous woman” was simultaneously understood as too “particular” to be this type of neutral citizen. Therefore, the creation of particular voting booths in which Muslim women exercised their civic duties in spaces that were explicitly marked as particular in terms of race, gender, and religion is in need of explanation. This paper traces the development, reception, and use of these booths during several key elections to determine how they illuminate French Republican, feminist, and nationalist conceptions about political rights, gender, and public space.