The new clothes of the taboo of female virginity in Algeria ; Les nouveaux habits du tabou de la virginité féminine en Algérie : œuvres et témoignages d'écrivaines algériennes et franco-algériennes d'expression française ; The new clothes of the taboo of female virginity in Algeria: Works and testimonies of Algerian and Franco-Algerian women writers of French expression ; Les nouveaux habits du tabou de la virginité féminine en Algérie : œuvres et témoignages d'écrivaines algériennes et franco-algériennes d'expression française: Oeuvres et témoignages d'écrivaines algériennes et franco-algériennes d'expression française

Numéro dirigé par Agnès Adjamagbo et Anne Calvès ; International audience ; The sacredness of female virginity, which crystallises complex sociological and anthropological issues linked to gender relations and the codification of social ages, is still very prevalent in Algeria, notwithstanding a context of slow socio-cultural transformations (urbanisation and the housing crisis, rural exodus, a relative increase in the level of women's education, a lowering of the average age of girls at marriage, and a timid increase in the number of single women). It continues to be one of the aspects of the socialisation of sexuality and, more specifically, of the religious and, above all, family/social control of female sexuality: still often confiscated from puberty onwards, this sexuality is considered illicit or transgressive when it is expressed outside the marital framework. Organising gender relations, respect for the taboo of virginity represents one of the fundamental elements of primary socialisation, and crystallises a number of collective fantasies.For several decades now, many Algerian and Franco-Algerian artists of French expression have been breaking the long imposed silence on this taboo which persists in traditional patriarchal society. By speaking out, they are sometimes accused in their country of origin (which, moreover, was confronted with islamist violence during the 1990s) of disseminating Western-centric stereotypes on the status - obviously not homogeneous - of women in Islamic cultures, and of activating islamophobia. Although film-makers have taken up this theme, it is mainly French-speaking women writers who, following the pioneering writings of the feminist activist Fadela M'Rabet in the mid-1960s, have taken it up.In the context of the emergence of women's literary creation that gave an important part to the (intrinsically subversive) expression of the body, authors such as Maïssa Bey, Hawa Djabali, Assia Djebar, Houria Kadra-Hadjadji, Leïla Marouane, Malika Mokeddem, Leïla Sebbar and Khalida ...