Gender against race? The Union des jeunes filles de Tunisie (Union of Young Women of Tunisia), a non-mixed organization in colonial Tunisia (1945-1956)

In the autumn of 1945, almost ten years after it was founded, the Union des jeunes filles de Tunisie was refounded by young communist women united by their wartime experience. Their fundamental aims were to reduce the inequalities suffered by women and to fight against colonialism. French, Tunisian, “Israelites”, “Muslims” – according to the colonial language – militate together. In the Union, Young women who are differently assigned meet and interact with each other despite the constraints of a society that is highly compartmentalized between categories that the authorities consider to be based on race, and between men and women. UJFT wants to be a space of education, encounters and action, despite these differences, and despite of social classes. This paper examines how this desire for inclusion and for transcending barriers of race and class is made possible by gender non-mixity, and it explores the effects of non-mixity. In so doing, it analyses the facets of youthful feminity defended and disseminated by the Union.