Because of her traditional seclusion inside her house and behind her haik, hitherto the Algerian woman had always remained more immune to French culture and social penetration than her menfolk; thus, when the revolt began, in many a household it was the woman who provided a hard nucleus of anti-colonial militancy.

XREF: Counterintuitive inversion of the assumption that seclusion/subordination produces passivity; relates to broader dynamics of colonized women's resistance in Frantz Fanon's work.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1230