Studies in language and gender are barely known in Morocco and the Arab-Islamic world at large. This paper highlights the empowering use that Moroccan women make of the languages available to them. The significance of this use is enhanced by the fact that Morocco is a multilingual country where languages do not have the same social and political status and where the choice and use of a language is part and parcel of negotiating the power related to gender-making and gender-creating in Moroccan society. Mono- or bilingual women use oral genres to assert themselves and literate (often multilingual) women use code-switching for the same purpose.
