The status of women in the Middle East has become a point of international fixation. Women's rights are a central part of the discourse on the Middle East and a topic of many public discussions, reports, and political debates. This is particularly true since the events of 11 September 2001. The bodies of Muslim women especially—regardless if they are from the Middle East or other areas of the world—have become targets of media scrutiny, government interventions, and international aid. Some may argue that we are seeing a resurgence of colonial feminist tropes in which Western women view women in other countries, particularly those considered developing or in the Third World, even though these categories are debatable, as in need of liberation and saving. More and more attention has been paid to the role that women have played in revolutions that have occurred across the Middle East in the 21st century in places like Egypt and Yemen. Eyes around the world have been on women as they join in protests and become critical figures in struggles for equal rights and fair treatment.

Amy Young Evrard provides a careful analysis of the women's rights movement in Morocco. In her book she brings together historical information and ethnographic data that she collected over the course of about two years between 2000 and 2008. Evrard spent the majority of her time in associations that are involved in the movement but also observed and interviewed other key members including the press and staff at international nongovernmental organizations. In the introduction she acknowledges that it was impossible to interview everyone involved in the movement across Morocco and instead she chose to focus on a select number of associations in cities like Rabat and Casablanca—the capital and economic center respectively. She was impressed by the “breadth of the women's rights movement—its projects, its concerns, the motivations that brought women to them, and the earnest desire of activists to be relevant to a broad swathe of the Moroccan population, both men and women” (p. 44). However, while in the various associations, she “heard again and again about Mudawwana [Moroccan family code] reform and the importance of legal reform and the education of women about their rights” (p. 44). Evrard focuses the book on the unique and complex ways that “transnational feminist efforts” (p. 9) and the local intersect within the work of the associations for legal reform and women's education. She gives particular attention to the “concrete conditions within which this vernacularization process is accomplished by women's rights activists in Morocco” (p. 10).

The mudawwana was codified in under King Mohammed V after Morocco achieved independence from France. He “supported the call of nationalists for a Mudawwana that would speak to modern notions of women and the family,” but the 1957 code was “conservative” and “met the demands for religious and tribal leaders rather than the nationalist reformers” (p. 109). The mudawwana was reformed in 1993 under King Hassan II but the reforms were largely “a disappointment for the women's rights movement” (p. 23). In 2003 King Mohammed VI (who took the throne in 1999) announced that he would work to reform the code and there was a sense that the women's rights movement did not “[matter] until the king breathed life into the movement—and, well, even into women” (p. 108). In 2004 Morocco reformed the mudawwana to afford women greater rights in marriage, divorce, and the family. Some activists and scholars consider the reform to be momentous in improving women's rights while still keeping in line with moderate interpretations of Islam and as a model for other countries in the Arab and Muslim worlds to follow. Evrard traces the history of the Moroccan women's rights movement with a particular focus on the family code and legal reform. She argues, “that a variety of associational goals … are subsumed within the larger goal of legal reform, and it is this shared goal that connects all of these disparate associations into a unified movement” (p. 25). She contends “there is an overriding understanding within these associations that the structure under which women live—the legal, and secondarily, political structure—must change for all other goals to be achieved” (p. 25).

Evrard offers a fresh perspective on women's rights particularly within the Middle East and North Africa. She provides a multidimensional analysis that “allows us to see how rights are worked out on the ground and also how messy women's agency can be as individuals and groups organize within a movement” (p. 19). Her study showcases the parallels and tensions between “transnational principles and local activism” (p. 19), and one particular highlight of the book is her illustrations of how “transnational feminist concepts of women's rights” (p. 3) are being translated by activists and associations so they are relevant and “convincing to Moroccan society more broadly” (p. 3). She showcases how “associations had tapped into a transnational feminist movement with universalist ideals of women's equality and rights yet had increasingly fostered a determination to find and speak to local voices” (p. 3). In addition to focusing on law and reform and the process of translation between the global and local, Evrard explores people's motivations and goals for joining the women's rights movement. How did they get there? What motivated them to become involved? Her book offers a “[close] examination of the day-to-day work and realities of the Morocco movement” that shows how a movement is produced that is “uniquely Moroccan yet resonates with women's concerns in the region and throughout the world” (p. 4).

The Moroccan Women's Rights Movement is written in an accessible manner that would make it of interest to advanced undergraduates; graduate students; academics in fields like anthropology, history, women and gender studies, and Middle East studies; and applied researchers working on issues such as rights, law, gender, and activism. Evrard has a clear writing style that is easy to follow. Tracing the women's rights movement in Morocco is not an easy task to do given that it has an extensive and complex history. It is impressive that she is able to take a grand amount of information, distill the most important parts, and present a coherent and concise analysis for her audience. The ways that she integrates historical data, ethnographic research, and popular culture in the book is laudable and makes it of interest to a wide audience. She provides enough background information about Morocco that makes the work accessible to those who do not conduct research in Morocco or the Middle East and North Africa more generally. This is a must read for those interested in women's issues and women's rights, activism, legal reform, family and law, gender, and the Middle East and North Africa.

My one concern is the timing of her ethnographic research in Morocco and the book's publication date, but of course there are many factors that must be taken into account when looking at the timing of fieldwork versus publication. Evrard conducted the main portion of her research in 2002 and 2003 and then conducted follow up research in December 2006–January 2007 and in the summer of 2008—a few years after the 2004 reform of the mudawwana. I am wondering if her work would look at all different today given that there was a change in the Moroccan parliament during the 2011 elections with the Justice and Development Party winning the most seats (a party considered Islamist but has claimed to only have an Islamic reference) and a general shift in the development agenda to focus more on social and human development. I would also be interested to see how the Moroccan women's rights movement has transformed, if at all, in light of the Arab Spring, which Evrard mentions but does not fully explore in this book given the timing of her ethnographic research. This is not a shortcoming of the book. Evrard presents a thorough analysis of the women's rights movement and the 2004 mudawwana reform—a critical part of Moroccan history. But rather, it is my hope that there will be a follow up study in the future that addresses these changes' impact on the women's rights movement in Morocco.