Homefront and Battlefront: The Status of Jewish and Palestinian Women in Israel

Gender inequality is manifested at all levels of life in Israel. While most Israeli literature describes the origins of the gender social gap, this paper analyzes the social mechanisms that continue to sustain gender inequality. These mechanisms exist despite the spread of ideology that espouses equality between the genders, despite new legislation to promote such equality, and despite the growing integration of women into the labor force and other public spheres. While many societies tend to blur the boundaries between private and public as a means to eradicate perception about gendered social division, this paper claims that, in Israel, the opposite occurs. Life in the shadow of a protracted Arab-Israeli conflict and constant threat has become a powerful mechanism that reproduces a gendered binary world. In military terms, the social dichotomy is characterized as "home front" and "battle front"; in sociological terms, the separation between the family and the military epitomizes the public/private split. In Israel, security, the army, and soldiering dominate the public sphere and are the bastions of male discourse. Family and familism are perceived as the pillars of Israeli communal and private lives and are the women's castle. These basic cultural frames serve as a major mechanism for reproducing the gendered division of labor, and, consequently, gender inequality. They not only locate women in traditional roles, but also dilute protest and temper the rise of a strong feminist movement. I argue that this process occurs in both Jewish Israeli and Palestinian ¹ communities, though in reality it unfolds differently due to their basically different social locations vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Gendered Division of Labor as a Cultural Frame

Gender inequality in modern Western society is supported by the perceived cultural separation between the public and private spheres of life. ² The hierarchical character of these realms accords the public domain greater prestige and superiority. The notion of two separate spheres of life is maintained by cultural assumptions that hold that each exists according to different principles of social order and having different social functions. Specifically, the public sphere is generally seen as meeting economic and political needs and rests on principles of association that are rational, substantive, competitive, and utilitarian. Social relations within this sphere are contractual and fundamentally formal. The private sphere, in contrast, is perceived as the intimate realm, in which life proceeds according to principles of mutuality, compromise, concern, and emotion. The distinction between them is seen as natural, hence the tendency to associate each domain with natural biological differences between the sexes.

Cumulative research shows that the public/private distinction is a cultural perception that emerged in the course of Western industrialization, urbanization, and bureaucratization. ³ The entrenchment of the dichotomy gave rise to concomitant institutions, legislation, and norms. Because the public sphere is identified with the modern, industrialized world, it is thought to possess greater force and prestige. The gender dichotomy parallels the dual-spheres distinction: the home is perceived to be the sphere of women's "expertise," while public life is seen as the male preserve. Besides a gendered division of roles, these cultural assumptions generate an unequal ascription of power and social prestige. The dichotomy between men and women in different worlds is inherently injurious to the idea of universal equality, which, by definition is not gender-dependent.

The exclusion of women from an ostensibly universal arrangement is made possible by the place assigned to the family in nationalist societies, particularly if their security is under threat. There is a connection between women's role as reproducers and their subjugation. In many societies various religious precepts, traditional customs, and legislation stipulate the process by which families become part of the collective group (marriage, divorce, the children's legitimacy). Nevertheless, the institution of the family assumed a new role with the rise of nationalism at the end of the nineteenth century. ⁴ As the perpetuation of nationalism evolved into...