Abstract
Gender interactions in the Moslem world and in Western societies are often opposed in terms of the woman's place in society. The Cultural differences between the two worlds can be underlined but it is not the subject of sociology to evaluate which one of the both ways of gender interaction is the best. The object of this essay is rather, to focus on the transition that can take place in some Moslem societies from ‘tradition' to ‘modernity' as far as sexual interactions are concerned. Using this framework, Fatima Mernissi, in Beyond the Veil: male-female dynamics in modern Muslim society (1975) makes the statement that in modern Morocco in the 1970s did not provide norms for sexual interaction between the sexes because of the desegregation of gender. According to Mernissi, this society is characterized by promiscuity between sexes and women are everywhere. Modernization broke down the Moroccan model of society and replaced it with a western one. As a consequence, females and males in Moroccan society are facing a crisis of femininity and masculinity and need to reshape gender definitions in a context of the absence of norms.
