How are women in Israel doing? Let's break it down....
On International Women's Day, some people want to hold up Israel as a model for gender equality. Wait, what?
A friend of mine who works in domestic violence in North America was asked to be on a panel for International Women’s Day which is tomorrow. The panel, organized by a prominent Jewish women’s organization, wanted her to respond to the following question:
Israel has been acknowledging and celebrating women long before they were feminist. When movements swept across the western world, Israeli women had the same rights and duties as men in the kibbutz democracy. Israel elected the first female Prime Minister in 1969 and Israeli law prohibits discrimination on gender in matters, such as employment and wages. Where do we go from here in terms of women’s rights, inclusion and equity?
Wait, what?!
My friend asked me how I would respond to this question. So I’m going to break it down for you.
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The image of Israel as the great gender equalizer is a bit superficial and needs a bit of a drill down:
"Israel has been acknowledging and celebrating women long before they were feminist. Movements swept across the western world. Women had the same rights and duties as men in the kibbutz democracy"
Actually, women on kibbutz were often relegated to the "female" jobs like laundry, kitchen and nursery. Lesley Hazelton wrote an excellent book about this myth of gender equality on kibbutz. -- you can read the NYT review here. Decades after this myth was exposed, the kibbutz political leadership remains almost exclusively male, like most political leadership throughout Israel.
“Israel elected the first female Prime Minister in 1969.”
For one thing, that was over 50 years ago! And has not been repeated. Put it this way: Golda was elected before I was born, and I’m a grandmother. Plus, Golda was not exactly a feminist, had no coattails for other women, and no interest in advancing women, and did not even acknowledge the patriarchy that surrounded her.
Let’s cut to today, shall we? Israel currently ranks 83rd in the world in gender representation in politics, a number that has been going down — in fact it went down 23 points in just one year. Fewer than 26% members of the Knesset are female. The few female cabinet members (see photo above) are often more vehemently anti-feminist and homophobic than their male peers. Orit Struck has promoted homophobic legislation and rhetoric — undoubtedly a factor in rising homophobic violence in Israel. May Golan who is unfortunately the head of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women calls herself a 'proud racist' and has done nothing to advance women, other than to run a Knesset conference to make gender segregation LEGAL in which she forbade women's organizations from attending. She is also on a media campaign to attack feminist organizations using the events of October 7 to prove that feminism is the root of all evil. Seriously. Meanwhile, the aforementioned conference promoting gender segregation was led in collaboration with another sickeningly racist and anti-feminist female MK, Limor Son Harmelech, who openly celebrates the murder of Arabs. Then there’s Tali Gotlib, not a minister but an MK with a big mouth, and Netanyahu's personal pick for his list in the one spot reserved for women, who has made a career out of defending rapists and attacking victims of sexual harassment as 'asking for it'. She is just the worst. They all are, unfortunately, all the women in this government.
Women in Israel 2024.
And we haven't even gotten into the issue of the religious parties where it is perfectly legal for them not to have women on their lists and where the coalition agreements include legalizing gender segregation and the removal of women from public spaces, in some cases punishable by up to 7 years in prison. Yes, Shas has successfully put forth a bill saying that a woman deemed to be dressed immodestly in certain public spaces can go to prison for 7 years. So there's also that whole thing....The religious right in power has its own misogynistic agenda. you can read my book, The War on Women in Israel which came out a decade ago but which unfortunately is more relevant than ever.
And we haven’t even gotten to other branches of government where the representation of women is paltry. Israel held municipal elections last week, and we’re still waiting for all the final results to be released and analyzed. Meanwhile, only 6% of mayors and regional council heads in Israel were women. I don’t think that outrageously low number will have moved significantly, but we’ll find out soon enough.
Overall, the Israel Democracy Institute’s research confirms the WEF ranking that women’s representation in Israeli government is significantly declining.
And perhaps most significantly right now: There are ZERO WOMEN on the security cabinet. There are ZERO WOMEN involved in cease fire negotiations. There are ZERO WOMEN with power and responsibility for bringing home the hostages. There are 19 young women still being held in Gaza, all of whom are assumed to be pregnant. And our government is being run by a bunch of men, and a few women, who don’t really seem to give a shit. So there’s that.
Are we surprised that the war isn’t ending and the hostages aren’t being fought for? These things are all connected.
“Israeli law prohibits discrimination on gender in matters, such as employment and wages.”
While it was true that in the 1950s, Israel was one of the first countries in the world to make gender discrimination in the workplace illegal — instituting ‘mother hours’ or a ‘mommy track’, and forbidding bosses from asking pregnant women to do heavy lifting, that was a long time ago and does not reflect today’s reality. In fact, the gender wage gap in Israel stands at 30% -- one of the lowest among OECD countries — and it hasn't budged in 40 years.
Women also have terribly low representation in business leadership, in numbers of CEOs, on boards, and in leading government companies. You can find more detailed data on all of these topics at the Adva Center or WIPS of the Van Leer Center or in most newspapers.
Also, Prof Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, in her book, Women in Israel: A State of their Own, explains the difference between law and cultural practice. She discusses the problem with a legislative approach to change that is not accompanied by cultural change. For instance, while Israel was one of the first countries to allow men to take parental leave, less than 1% of men actually do. Because it’s about more than the law.
Also, about those laws about the ‘mommy track’, Halperin-Kaddari argues that these laws can also have the reverse effects of their intended gender equality, signaling that women are not ‘leadership material’ and making it common practice to pass over women for advances and raises. And also, these laws end up ensuring that caretaking is done by women, that women can go do child pickup at 4 but men can’t, and that women are generally seen as fragile and uncommitted to work. So there’s that.
“Where to from here?”
Wait, what? That’s it? We’re done? That’s all there is to talk about in terms of Israel and gender?
We haven't even mentioned the terrifying bully running the police, Itamar Ben Gvir, and his campaign to support for the rights of abusive men and his mission to ensure that men accused or convicted of domestic violence have easy access to guns.
Or the rise of femicide, murder of women by their intimate partners, or ex partners. See also the fearless Forum Michal Sela for more data on this.
And we haven’t even discussed the gender impacts of this war, the impacts on women left behind for months at a time, and the cultural regression into a place where men go to fight and women mind the children. I wrote about it here. There are women fighting to put the needs of ‘reservist wives’ on the public agenda. But it’s a small effort considering what we are facing here. Culturally, this war is pulling us backwards when it comes to gender in ways that are going to be very hard to undo. And we haven’t started to ask the question about how months of war will affect the men fighting and their relationships. This will take years or decades to heal from.
We also haven't mentioned the double oppression faced by Arab women in Israel, how the Arab-Israeli community faced a mass wave of firings on October 8, especially among women wearing hijab. Arab women were attacked on the street even in Tel Aviv after October 7, and many are still afraid to walk on the street. You’ll be hard-pressed to find an article about this in the Israeli media. But I work with several organizations, including an Arab women’s organization in Yaffo called Arus El Bacher, which is working very hard on this issue, and is struggling to get the attention of the public, the media, lawmakers, and donors. Arab women in Israel are probably the lowest priority group in Israel, even moreso since October 7. And I don’t know if there is anyone with any kind of power in Israel who even cares a little.
On the other hand, the issue of sexual violence by Hamas terrorists on October 7 is very much on the international agenda right now, even if people in the UN have been jerks about it. President Biden, VP Harris, and Sheryl Sandberg are all making sure that the world doesn’t forget this. So there’s that.
All I can do is hope that the issue of sexual abuse in general gets the same attention. After all, one in three women will experience sexual abuse in her lifetime — mostly NOT by Hamas terrorists, often by people they know. So let’s not forget about all that.
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And can I mention the women of Gaza? Can we talk about this in the context of Israel and gender? I realize some people consider this a taboo subject. That it leads to a slide towards antisemitism to even express the slightest criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza. For Israeli-Zionist feminism, there is often an invisible red line, not to talk about Palestinian women. While for Palestinian feminists, there is often a sense that feminism which does NOT address the lives of Palestinian women and their multiple sources of oppression is not genuine feminism. I’ve been in these spaces where these issues blow up. For many years, I was definitely in the camp of Jewish-Zionist feminism that did not understand why the ‘occupation’ always had to be part of the discussion of feminism. I don’t like feminist litmus tests — like, you can only be feminist if you are vegetarian/pacifist/unmarried/non-hetero/poor/financially independent….. I don’t like those litmus tests at all…. Today, though, I’m in a different place vis a vis my relationship with Palestinian voices, and more inclined to sympathize with the idea that if we are going to talk about gender in Israel without addressing the real lives of Palestinian women and our role as part of a very patriarchal and violence Zionism, then we are contributing to the problem. So I’m just going to leave these thoughts here, with my very pained heart about our roles in the suffering of the people of Gaza. To be unpacked another time.
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So where to from here?
First, we have to change the government. ASAP...Obviously…
But that is no enough. Because the problem is everywhere, not just in right-wing circles. Even the opposition parties have trouble with gender issues. Almost all the parties are headed by men, none of whom has a particularly impressive record on women. The only Knesset party with a woman head is Labor, but its head, the amazing feminist Merav Michaeli, was very aggressively pushed out by her less-feminist male listers led by reform rabbi Gilad Kariv (feminist my ass). Michaeli has announced she is leaving politics. Who knows what will become of Labor now. Meanwhile, Meretz is gone (will it make a comeback? who knows.)
Hadash the Arab-Jewish socialist party whose amazing anti-violence feminist co-founder, Aida Toume Souleman, is struggling with post Oct-7 discrimination and backlash that is overeager to label her as a terrorist, like so many Arab legislators who, no matter how hard they scream and shout that Oct 7 was wrong and hamas are terrorists, are being scapegoated by the war hungry right-wing bibist mob. So there's that. Who knows where that will lead.
So where is a feminist agenda going to come from in Israel?
We need not just a change in government, but a change in culture.
We need to be able to talk about gender and the many ways that gender norms are entrenched in Israel, and how patriarchal ideas inform everything about our country. Our economy, our discourse, our politics, our structures, our families, our communities — and not the least of all, the way this conflict is being handled.
We need feminist women in positions of power. Especially in issues of peace and security. And we need to change our cultural discourse about gender, power, and violence.
And in the wake of October 7, it’s even harder to talk about anything other than October 7. So gender isn’t even on the agenda. Except for sexual violence by Hamas. Everything else is just barely even being discussed in the general public.
That’s not to say that many amazing women aren’t trying. Many women pushed for gender equality in the municipal elections last week. Again, I’m waiting for the stats on those results, but I’m not particularly optimistic.
There are amazing women fighting for women’s inclusion in peace and security. I’m involved with a group of women called the 1325 Forum, fighting to get Israel to implement UNSCR 1325 that calls for women in decision-making power around peace and security, and for the inclusion of diverse women’s perspectives on issues of war and peace. Itach-Maaki has been working on this issue or years, for example.
Then there are the young women urging the government to let them join combat units in the army. A group of young women petitioned the government last week. They argue that while the government is pushing for a bill to recruit haredi men who do NOT want to serve because the army claims it needs thousands of more soldiers, all these young women who DO want to serve are being pushed away. (My views on army service as a litmus test for character and fitness are the subject for a different post.) And I haven’t even mentioned the infuriating gender discrimination against female soldiers that significantly led to the October 7 fiasco.
But for now, I’ll just that these women make a salient point. Especially given how many women did heroic things on October 7 and saved many lives. In the army, like everywhere else, women deserve to be seen and heard and treated as equals. We are far, far from that point. But many women are trying.
So all of that is happening. Where there’s life there’s hope, I suppose.
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So, where is Israel headed from here?
If only we had gender equality on the public agenda -- we don't, yet.
If only feminist leaders had real power -- they don't, yet.
If only the culture supported gender equality -- it supports religion and militarism more. The culture is currently dominated two of the biggest sources of patriarchal culture, army and religion. For now.
If only we were having a real conversation about violence in our culture, and about sexual violence in our own communities. We’re not. We’re headed in the other direction, I fear. For now.
We need new leaders, new culture, an end to the war, a return of the hostages, and new elections ASAP so that Israel can get to work figuring out if we are actually a democracy, whether we value life the way we like to say we do and whether this is a place where ideas like equality and human rights actually matter.
We can get there. We just have to keep fighting for it. Fighting hard.
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