Sexuation, valorisation et particularisation des « femmes chefs d’entreprise » dans la région d’Agadir (Maroc)

This article focuses on the emergence of a new category of women entrepreneurs and the issue of its social legitimacy in the region of Agadir (Morocco) on the basis of a field study carried out between 2003 and 2006. It presents the historical conditions of the emergence of enterpreneurial roles taken on by women, revisiting in particular the gendered division of labor characteristic of the type of capitalism imposed by colonial powers, the material and ideological consequences of neoliberal policies Morocco started implementing in the 80s, as well the revision of the Moudawana in 2004. The author then seeks to show that legitimacy for an entrepreneurial role for women is obtained through a process of sexuation of that role. This sexuation takes place within the moral register of « traditional values» associated with femininity, leading to the social construction of relatively consensual female figures (positively valued) and of male figures (rather undevalued) on an antagonistic mode associated with the specific context. However, prevailing socio-economic conditions in which the women entrepreneurs and their families operate, i.e. the combination of sex and social class relations, lead these women and their spouses into forms of relationships that do, to some degree, transgress the proclaimed « traditional values »