Being a Feminist in Israel

A committee of five men reviewed my doctoral dissertation proposal five years ago. They did not understand what was so unique about my topic,

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“Women’s Service in the Israeli Army 1948-1967.” “Everything is known,” they said. Is it really? No one has ever written the history of the Women’s Force, so how can everything be known?

Was I surprised by this attitude? No, not at all. Being a native-born Israeli enables me to reflect on Israeli society with both love and pain. In the eyes of the world Israel always seemed as fighting for and implementing gender equality. The story of the first settlements (kibbutzim) where women worked with men shoulder to shoulder and the world-famous pictures of women soldiers carrying arms might give the impression that Israel has achieved what very few other nations have: a society of gender equality. But the truth is that Israel has always been a very “macho” society. By “macho” I mean that in Israel militarism has overlapped onto civilian life. A militarized society is a male-oriented society, and issues concerning the lives of women are therefore secondary: equal opportunities at work (salary, promotion, fringe benefits), marital laws (marriage, divorce, inheritance), violence against women, welfare (for poor women, single mothers, and older women), and better integration and participation in politics.

Israel was and is a society torn because of a precarious military situation as well as political rifts between Left and Right, clerical and secular, women and men, Ashkenazi (European) population and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern). We are still so far from achieving so many of the goals that are the basis for an equal opportunity society, one of which is equal rights for women. Men never saw equal opportunities as a topic on their political agenda; the problem is that neither did most of the women.

Israeli women have struggled from the beginning of the 20th century for their right to be included in all spheres of life: politics, the economy, and education as well as the military. It was a fight that was never really won – there were just small victories from time to time. An example is the story of the Women’s Union for Equality in Eretz Israel, founded in 1919 by an American woman, Dr. Rose Walt Strauss. This political party took upon itself to integrate women into the political life of the Jewish population in Palestine. It participated in several elections in the 1920s and 1930s with immense success. Unfortunately, the achievement was not to be repeated. The party disbanded when the State of Israel was founded in 1948. Contemporary Israelis never heard about this party and its achievements until 1977 when a group of us decided to establish the Women’s Party. One of our members found a small dusty book about the Women’s Union in a corner of the library of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. We published the book again and now all the school-books tell the story of the first women’s party.

The years after the State of Israel was established were stormy. The image one gets from the media and other sources is that a woman’s main role was to be a good daughter and then a good wife and mother. A woman was penalized if she stepped out of that role and rewarded if she stayed “in line.” She could even be called “a whore” if she did not comply with the rules. But if women felt any discontent, they did not express it. When a group of Israeli and American women assembled at the beginning of the 1970s with the idea of forming a feminist group, it was a curiosity but not yet a threat. When more women joined, the press started to be a bit hostile: “bra-burners,” we were called. Whenever I entered a room, fingers were pointed at me: “Here comes the feminist!” But we had a mission: to make women see their subservient situation. It was a very difficult task because most Israeli women would not listen. They were nearly as hostile as the men — we were rocking their boat.

The Feminist Movement of the 1970s was a small but radical movement that was pressuring the nearly all-male hegemony in Israeli politics. The devastating war of 1973 and the absolute helpless-ness of women then, raised for the first-time critical questions about the insignificant role women played in times of war. Some articles were written and the discontent was heard. In the elections of 1974, one of the parties offered a seat in parliament to one of the leaders of the Feminist Movement. The Prime Minister consented in 1976 to establish a committee to look into the status of women in Israel, a first step toward a change in a society with conservative values. In 1977 a part of the feminist group founded a political party that ran in the elections with a radical platform. We did not win, but we received a lot of positive publicity and reached people we could not reach until then.

Among the issues the feminist movement did not deal with was an issue we never really argued about: the issue of women serving in the army. We felt that women cannot demand equal opportunities if

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they do not fulfill their military service obligation. Compulsory conscription for men and women is a law and not serving in the army, we thought, might damage the status of women in Israel. On the other hand, in a country engaged in so many wars, where fathers, brothers, and sons fought and died, many women felt that it was wrong to talk about equality

— there never was any. I think that after 56 years that is not a relevant excuse anymore. In the last 20 years, the issues of Israel’s security and the fate of the settlements in the occupied territories forced more women into the streets to demonstrate then ever did any feminist issue. An example is the formation of the first anti-war movement in Israel, organized to-tally by women in 1982, which called for the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from Lebanon. Most of these women were mainstream middle-class women, who had university degrees and had served in the army but did not declare themselves as feminists. They felt they had something to say about war and security as women and mothers. Many men felt threatened by this new phenomenon of Israeli women protesting against a war. They said that women do not understand security matters. This argument does not deter women today. They protest and demonstrate on various political issues but not, unfortunately, feminist issues that are not considered “important enough.”

I served in the army and so did most of my friends. We felt proud to fulfill this national duty. When I talk to other women about their army service, I hear mixed feelings. Many fondly remember their service but usually tell of tedious, boring, and unrewarding jobs. Men and women were assigned to different roles: women got genderized roles that were set for women from the beginning when a list of 12 jobs was published. Most were clerical, teaching, and nursing roles — not fighting like the men — there was no feeling of achievement, no heroics. Even women officers either had administrative jobs or were in charge of women soldiers, looking after their welfare. A professional military career was not possible because there were no advancement possibilities — you could not become a high-ranking officer without field experience (combat training and commanding). However, now women have many more roles open to them, even some combat roles like pilots and trainers of combat soldiers.

In Israeli society today there is a backlash to the achievements that we feminists worked so hard for. The only TV program dedicated to women’s is-sues from the feminist point of view and chaired by a feminist-oriented woman for half an hour once a week was recently reformatted after five years. Now it’s a joint venture of a feminist and a cynical male journalist. In 2001 the army abolished the post of Woman Commanding Officer of the Women’s Force and made the top woman’s position a consulting role to the Chief of Staff. Recently there was an attempt to eliminate even this post, but women’s organizations protested and the position remains, for now.

The press in Israel claims we are in the “postfeminist era,” which I doubt, though the picture is mixed. The feminist movement as such disbanded in the early 1980s, but many other feminist organizations emerged. Women realized that being nice is not enough, that much more had to be done to have equal opportunities. More women joined the work force: in 2003, 69 percent of women aged 15-54 worked. Many women have earned university degrees and developed careers. But they still have many children,

2.73 total fertility rate per woman, the highest rate among Western countries. (This might prove that family is still the center of women’s lives in Israel.) Young women are still asked when applying for a job, “How many children do you plan to have?”, even though it is illegal, and many women risk being fired from their jobs during pregnancy, even though employers need to get permission from the Ministry of Work and Welfare. There are sexual harassment laws and trials and heavier punishment than formerly, but wife-beating and murdering have increased. Women are a large percentage of the poor in our country. Women are still blamed: if poor single mothers, it’s because they live on welfare and do not work; if sexually harassed or raped, “she asked for it” or she used her complaint to get even with some man.

Did we 1970s feminists make a difference? Yes, I believe we did. Saying “I am a feminist” today in Israel is socially accepted, unlike 30 years ago. We brought the feminist agenda onto the social and political agendas. Many issues were raised by us and other women’s organizations which followed us. An example is of the feminist member of parliament, who in 1976 declared that there were hundreds of beaten wives in Israel. The parliament roared with laughter, but the first shelter for beaten wives was opened in 1977. Today this issue is no laughing matter. We gave lectures all over Israel in schools, universities and other institutions. We attracted media

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attention to feminist issues. Considering how few we were, it’s amazing to look back on the past 30 years and see the changes in Israeli society, mostly among the younger generation of women which takes our hard-won achievements for granted. But I am sure they feel, like we “veterans,” that the way to full gender equality is still a long, arduous journey.

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