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CHAPTER 5 Women's Gender Identity: "Who am I?" A headline in Naamat's monthly captured the essence of womanhood in Israel: "I Am Not a Feminist, but ... " The article recalled that Israeli women, even the "progressive" ones, often state that although they are not "feminists" they support women's quest for equality. Rejection of feminism is deepened by the extremist image of feminists. It is therefore not surprising , asserted the writer, that "the majority of women, used to being indulgent, yielding and pleasant, and lacking the courage to go their own way and express their own desire, join the chorus denouncing feminists and denying feminism."l This short quote encapsulates the problems encountered by Israeli women in their feminist identity. "Identity" in modern society is a multifaceted phenomenon. To the question "Who am I?" there is always more than one answer. But an order of priorities, not always clear-cut, does create self-boundaries and does shape self-images. Embracing an identity is particularly difficult in societies where values and norms are mutually exclusive. This is the case in Israel, where women are faced with a dilemma: to be faithful members of their national community or to be proponents of their gender rights. As elaborated above, the choice between the two entails a determination of priorities. The underlying question, therefore , is, how, and to what extent, have Israeli women incorporated these two identities to form a coherent frame of reference? 119 120 Between the Flag and the Banner The clash between gender identity and other forms of reference is not unique to Israel but is common to women worldwide . Several difficulties have been enumerated as obstructing the formation of gender identity and women's groupconsciousness . First, widespread beliefs in meritocracy and intergenerational mobility in industrialized societies have inculcated in women the feeling that they can make it without taking the feminist course. The economic success of women in the United States has on the one hand encouraged feminism, but it has also worked against gender separatism. Second, across the globe women share with men economic gains and losses and are emotionally bound up with males as husbands, brothers, or fathers. These bonds put heavy constraints on gender identification , implying, at least partially, confrontation with men. Third, recent experience has revealed that "sisterhood" is less viable in social life than expected. Women often compete with other women of more privileged status (Gurin 1985), a circumstance that works against group cohesion. Finally, the entrenched construction of women as a dependent target group, and their treatment as such by policy-makers (Schneider and Ingram 1993), often militate against gender identity. In Israel the problem is aggravated by the overarching "national vision," presumed to dominate all spheres of life. The manner in which Israeli women have coped with these difficulties is the subject of this chapter. The Meaning of Gender Identity Gender identity has been described as an "elusive concept" difficult to grasp. Any group identity implies a sense of a common bond and of shared status. As women do not constitute a "group" in the classical sense of the term, the problem is aggravated . One way of probing women's identity centers on the affinity women feel for each other. Rinehart, for example, suggested that gender identity is "one's recognition that one's relationship to the political world is at least partly but nonetheless particularly shaped by being female or male. This recognition is followed by identification with others in the 'group' of one's sex, positive affect toward the group, and a feeling of interdependence with the group's fortunes" (1993, 32). Women's Gender Identity: "Who am I?" 121 The major indicator for evaluating gender identity on the basis of interdependence is the "group closeness" question, included in the U.s. National Election Study (see Gurin et al. 1980; Rinehart 1993, 51-55). The second approach regarding the examination of gender identity focuses on attitudes toward gendered issues, often covered by the title of feminism. Notwithstanding the vagueness of the concept and its controversial meaning, it is widely agreed that "feminism at least means insistence on equality of treatment, particularly equal access to all elements of public life, along with the equal rewards for activities " (Black 1980, 92). This approach attempts to capture collective orientations of women, assuming that they are discontent with their power in society and that they desire a change in the status quo, which favors men over women. In line with this approach, respondents in...

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