Fatema Mernissi was born on 27 September 1940 in Fez, Morocco. She grew up in the harem of her affluent paternal grandmother along with various female kin and servants.[1] She received her primary education in a school established by the nationalist movement, and secondary level education in an all-girls school funded by the French protectorate.[2] In 1957, she studied political science at the Sorbonne in Paris and later at Brandeis University in the US, where she gained her doctorate in 1974.[3]