Breaking the Silence

Fadela Amara is President of Ni Putes Ni Soumises, as well as the Federation Nationale des Maisons des Potes, a network of associations working to structure civic, cultural, and social activities in suburban housing projects. Sylvia Zappi writes for Le Monde and is the coauthor of Our Spring in Winter (1986). Helen Harden Chenut is Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of California, Irvine.

• Translator's Introduction Prologue PART ONE: SOCIAL BREAKDOWN IN THE PROJECTS 1 Daughter of the Housing Projects 2 The Status of Women in the 1990s 3 Between Invisibility and Rebellion 4 Sexuality in the Projects 5 From Neighborhood to Ghetto 6 Obscurantism, the Key to Regression PART TWO: AN ACT OF SURVIVAL: THE MARCH AND ITS SUCCESS 7 Preparations for the March 8 The Success of the March 9 Is Feminism No Longer Relevant? 10 The Battle Ahead Epilogue: Reinvest in the Suburbs! Postscript Appendix 1: A National Appeal from Neighborhood Women Appendix 2: The Manifesto of Neighborhood Women Bibliography and Further Reading Index

"The translation of Neither Whores Nor Doormats allows us, finally, to listen directly to the voices of Muslim women in France. Fadela Amara's book is at once autobiography, an analysis of the degradation of male-female relations in France's working-class suburbs, and an engrossing chronicle of a political movement. Helen Chenut's deft translation and comprehensive introduction introduces us to the complex universe inhabited by young women of North African descent in contemporary France." - Susanna Barrows, author of Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History"