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J Henriette Dahan-Kalev Mizrahi Women Identity and Herstory Introduction The wordplay in English involving “history” and “herstory” illustrates the claim that history was written by men about men, and that the role of women is missing. The feminist revolution has penetrated into the ivory towers and begun to trickle into fields of research and to illuminate the absence and marginality of women in history. Gender research in political thought revealed the apparatuses for the separation and exclusion of women. This claim has been investigated by female researchers in various disciplines. Susan Okin found that the inclusive term “man” is not so abstract when it comes to the gender division of labor and to its organization according to spheres.1 In statements about responsibility and the value of the spheres—the private and the public—thinkers such as Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Hegel perceive women in instrumental terms in the private sphere, which is considered secondary to the public. When speaking about political concepts such as freedom, control, or justice, they apply them to the concept “man” that is held as an abstract, as it were, and by allusion the discussion applies also to women and includes them, too. In a discussion about the responsibility for the continuation of the human genus, on responsibility for the home and family and childrearing, these philosophers make a clear distinction and point out that this is the role of women. Okin summarizes her analysis with the conclusion that the Western thinkers’ approach can be summed up by the gender distinction according to which they perceive women in a instrumental manner and ask “What is a woman for?” while their perception of men is one of essence, that is, “What is a man like?”2 Feminist historical re- search according to this line of argument from now on must concentrate on the history of women in order to close many gaps. A large question looms up in this regard on how to investigate this field. If the public sphere and the rules of the game within it were determined by men, and if the private sphere has been perceived as so inferior to the point of its not being mentioned, what then are the sources from which one can learn about it? Feminist scholars have demonstrated the importance of multiple points of view in philosophical and historical research, including the problematics of the concept “objectiveness.”3 Following Foucault, they pointed out the need to dismantle the connection between Knowledge with a capital “K” and power during the process of the creation of knowledge—a dismantling that leads to there being no single ultimate, objective, true knowledge, but rather multiple viewpoints. This calls for expanding the gamut of knowledge so that place will be given to every point of view.4 This line of thought befits other weak groups, too, which until recently also had been excluded and marginalized. The influence of the colonialist government , for example, constituted a broad base for the study of the politics of identities.5 The combination of political processes with aims of creating knowledge from multiple different viewpoints undermines the patriarchal monopoly on knowledge inherently challenging knowledge. It carries tensions and dangers deriving from the threat directed towards those who hold hegemony over current knowledge. Moreover, it necessitates the development of new methodologies to reach sources of knowledge that are not attested through the traditionally accepted documentation. In the Western world, one already may find historical studies that construct “herstory,” that is, including the role of women in the stories of the national ethos. Their methodological importance is that beyond the expansion of knowledge as to women’s role in the national story of building the nation, they point out the difficulty in illuminating women’s story when they are not included in the officially documented ethos in the national pantheon. The situation is even more problematic and complicated when dealing with socially and culturally heterogeneous societies. In cases such as these, where there is an attempt at documenting the role of women in a national, historical endeavor, they are perceived as a homogeneous mass in terms of gender, which hides and represses their links to various groups that are at time in conflict. This is the situation in relation to Israel and the history of women in Israel . “Herstory,” when speaking of Israel, is a story that takes place in a society composed of groups divided by ethnic, national, economic, and religious 34...

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