Women in the Middle East: progress or Regress

US Empassy panel

Let me first start with some question on the Title of this Panel. Could we speak of the women in the Middle East as one entity? What other possibilities we have? If we use the Term Arab women we will exclude the Jewish women in Israel the Turkish women in the Turkey and will raise the questions again is being Arab is a common domain for all the women living in the so called Middle East? If we use Muslim Women we will exclude again all Jewish women, Christian Druze, Behaies to mention just a few. One of the major problems that we are facing is our perception and awareness of what we define as a problem. Are we defining as a problem the Middle East, women, the powers that exist in the Middle East or their interrelations?

I begin with these to remind ourselves that there is a Pluralistic reality that we have to take into consideration when we speak about women in General and when we speak about collective that was defined by others than the group itself.

We also have to remember which biases influence our views on any subject and let me share mines. I am not only an Arab woman, Arab women are also Iraqis, Lebanese, and the Moroccans. All these are Arabs, and I am not all of these. I am a Palestinian woman living in Israel as a citizen of Israel. Therefore, I would be able to speak about that, about the Palestinian women inside Israel with the difficulties and the challenges that we are facing.I was born to a catholic Family and moved to be secular, I was educated in several institutions influenced mainly with western thinking In Israel and Germany, I am social worker and psychologist.

I am highly committed to the suffering of my people (the Palestinian people) and to their struggle for freedom democracy and self determination. I am also committed to women among my people women in the world, since I am Feminist and finally I am committed to all marginalized in our society. I am activist.

I totally agree with the previouse speaker (Anat) about the question of whose agenda it is of saving the women. As an activist coming from the field of women empowerment, I always have the contradictory feeling in my relation to my people, my reality, and with imposing upon us the agenda of others. Where is this limit? Sometimes it puts us in a very sensitive way in the relation between our agenda and the external agenda.

This is a big challenge for all women in the Palestinian community inside and outside Israel. As a Palestinian woman in Israel, citizen of Israel, I live in a state which defines itself as a Jewish state, but if we are speaking about all issues relating to women’s issues, then Palestinian women inside Israel are triply discriminated against. First, as part of the Palestinian national minority inside Israel, and secondly as part of the women in Israel—because women in Israel are living as a whole—Jews and Arabs—in a militaristic environment and this of course is not in favor of women’s rights and not in favor of women’s status. If we go further, we, as Palestinians inside the patriarchal and conservative society, have to face all the problems and challenges faced by a culture which is going into transfer.

Progress or Regress

I believe that societies are passing ongoing changes, these changes are influenced by different internal and external factors. These changes are not linear (reaching better condition of leaving for all ). Therefore I prefer to speak about challenges and opportunities for women all women than speaking of progress and regress.

They don’t progress or regress, there is a spiral movement within societies which has a trend, and I am pleased that some of the positive trends were mentioned.

And if I am thinking about whether I live better than my grandmother, then I would say yes, not only me, but also a lot of my sisters who were struggling for democratization and feminism in the Arab world, and I am speaking about the Arab world in this concern, in the Arab countries. And I think that in the trends we have been able to speak about domestic violence within our families, as a new issue related to women, as we are speaking about violence, about femicide against women on what is called the “honor killing.” We can speak about sexual violence. We can speak more about the democratic action and also we are participating more in our society.

As Palestinians living in Israel, we also have to face the issue that in the state of Israel, you mentioned Lebanon as a way of dealing with the personal status law. The personal status law in Israel is very similar that all the religions have to go to religious courts. There is no civil law relating to personal status law, and as an activist who worked for six years to make a change within the Israeli system for more rights of Palestinian women—Muslim and Christians—to be able to go to civil courts, to family court, we have faced the most amazing contra-coalition against our coalition as a women’s organization working towards more rights for women in the personal status between the Islamic fundamentalists within our culture and the Jewish fundamentalism who are in the parliament, are represented both of them, and they made a coalition against our attempt to change the personal status law.

So from that out, I think that we are living in a very moving and challenging reality which could create more change, but at the same time, we are struggling with the fact that our agenda as feminists, as women activists, as political power, as peace power, is sometimes used—or I would say misused—by some forces that could be striking back at us as a reaction to this. And because the democratization demand is coming as if it is coming from the West, we will always have to stand up for our rights and to say “this is our reality,” and it does not have to do with those democracies, but rather with our understanding of democracy, how we understand democracy. And I think here we need to hear more women’s voices, to hear the women’s narrative in the different realties of the Middle East to be able to build up a better pluralistic understanding of the situation in the Middle East and to make allies between all women who are struggling for the same situation.

As a Palestinian inside Israel, in this situation I am also prohibited to make such allies with my sisters in the Arab world, because politically what does that mean to be able to network with other feminists or other democratic forces who are beaten or put in jail by all the Arab regimes, the same regimes that are supported by leading democratic countries in the west—from the Saudi regime, to Egyptian regime, to the Jordanian regime—where we can see that women who are struggling for real democracy, real civil society, for real women’s rights are actually the ones who are attacked and put in jail and imprisoned. And some of them, as you mentioned the question of women in Saudi Arabia, when they tried to drive, while in Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive a car, they were prohibited to act in their jobs, to act in their lives. So within that contradictory situation, the big challenge is to keep in mind that we can make a change, women can make a change, but the only possibility for that, I think, is when women understand how to network, understand to make solidarity with each other, and to act against the hierarchy of suffering, which today is one of the major obstacles before women’s solidarity and networking.

Dealing with History as herstory

I think that, first of all, it is very important when we analyze any given situation to look at the history. As you mentioned the history of Arab women and their struggle is a long one, and in Egypt it began even long before Kasim Amin. As one feminist researcher stated, even long before Kasim Amin was standing up for women’s rights, there were many women who were paying for their struggle. So I think that history is one of the elements that we should take into consideration when analyzing a specific situation or country, but also the infrastructure or content of that history.

I believe that if we look at Iraq, for example, with the process, that the history of Iraq did not begin with Saddam. It began long before that. The infrastructures for democracy in Iraq existed long before Saddam, and then Saddam came and destroyed these infrastructures, and it was supported by the West. And this is what we were stating in regards to saving the women. When it comes with these double standards or morals that this is okay when it suits our interest, then it is okay, and when it is not in our interests, then we stand against it. It is not a constant value. That is why today I repeatedly find myself coming back to the question of value. Which values we want to have in our society, education system, and surroundings? Are we seeking the best conditions for all women, including women in poverty and those who do not have the status of privileged women such as we? Most of the activists today are women who in some way or another are privileged in their own societies. What does that make us for the rest of our society and how do we deal with it?

In regards to strategies for increased involvement of women, I do agree that quota is a very effective strategy. The question is how do we reach the quota? Are we struggling for it in a democratic system, the parties’ system, or is it given from the state or the kingdom? When it is given from the kingdom, it is imposed on the people and sometimes could actually act against the issue that we want to address. That is why we hear more voices and the voice of Mariam in Gaza will be listened to more than the voice of A’ida, for example who struggles for human rights in Egypt for which she has received awards.

But we don’t hear that in the media. We hear about what threatens us, what the West feels threatened by, and it is threatened by many phenomena that the Westerners do not understand. That is why I think we come back to what I was suggesting, listening more to women’s voices, those of grassroots’ women who are in the field struggling this struggle, acting upon these issues, and raising these issues in a different political way, means, and strategies. I think this is what we have to reorganize our thoughts about.

Lastly, when we are discussing political participation, participation in decision-making is very important, but also the democratic infrastructure for such participation begins at different levels. Where are the women at in the different levels—in the NGOs, in the different organizations of different activities and community activities, in social services, in others? It is not only the decision-making level. We can’t only reach up to the decision-making level. We do have to work for quotas, but also at strengthening the political participation of women in the grassroots, in the different levels of women’s participation.

Dealing with Power

I think that if we are looking at the issue as who has the power, when we are in a changing and the women are coming out and asking for their rights. The women have their agenda in the Middle East and the different Arab countries, Turkey, and Iran, when they come out and they ask for new power. They are coming out and want to take power. If we look at it as a power struggle, then of course some of the men will see it as a loss of power and for those Islamists who believe it necessary to control women’s behavior, rights, and movements, then I think that for them women gaining power is a threat to their ideology. But what does that mean? Does that mean women should stand aside and wait as national movement’s say first national liberation and then women’s liberation? Women have learned the hard way that there is no such two stages, that women’s liberation is very connected to the other aspect and women can’t sit aside for their demands. I think that the feminist women in the Palestinian situation have learned that you cannot just stand and wait. You have to struggle for your rights today and even yesterday.

Obstacles before women for political participation.

I just want to add a few points regarding the obstacles before women for political participation. One is the domestic division of rules and the double jobs that women are doing inside and outside. Politics are normally done as volunteer work after working hours and normally at night and most of the women have to take care of their children, houses, and so on, which is a burden on women.

I think that the feminization of poverty mentioned in the beginning is another obstacle before women’s political participation. Education, I do agree, is not enough, but I think, and among the Palestinian women in Israel itself there was research done that stated to the same effect, that women with high education have problems getting jobs. Women in the traditional patriarchal societies had power, but they had power behind the scenes. They used their power behind the scenes and that is the model that we received from our mothers and grandmothers, and that is why I believe we should be creating new models.

That is why I do think that quotas are very important for creating such models. I don’t think that quota alone can solve the problems. And of course the quota brings with it problematic issues such as that women are not all supporting women’s rights in their positions. There is also the internalization of inferiority that women have and when they are in power they again use the models that exist, which is the patriarchal and hierarchal model, and not empowering models for women. But nevertheless I think the quota system is very important, has proven itself in different cases, but alone it is not enough. When we speak about political participation, we should have in mind broad participation and not only at the decision-making level, but in the process of politics in all its aspects. When we involve women more and more in that process, I think we have more chances for women in politics.

The Islam is not the problem

My last remark in regards to Islam, Islam is not only one ideology, Islam is interpreted by different forces, as in the Tunisian laws which prohibit polygamy and are based on Islam. Today women who write about women in the Islamic world demonstrate how pluralistic the use of Islam is. That is why I think Islam is not the problem, but rather the political use of Islam. We have to differentiate between fundamentalists who are politically using the religion and power and I think that today there is a lot of feminist efforts within the tradition which are trying to interpret Islam differently. I am not in favor of that, but I am just bringing it to our minds.

The factors that influencing women statues:

We have two factors influencing the women’s situation. These are the socioeconomic conditions, and Normes amd tradition

Socioeconomic condition which are determinate by where you living, (south, north, village (recognized or unrecognized) city, in the preferry or central), the type of governing in the country you live in (kingdom or democratic elected government, relation between the governing body and the money holder, social benefit, etc). so long that most of the women are still living in poverty, were the basic condition for living are missing, women will spend most of their energies in ensuring their living condition and their families.

This will limit their opportunity to study, work and ensure their existence, and though we are speaking about poverty about accessibility of women to work, to resources, and these are conditions that can be faced with different strategies such as the microcredit to support women, professional training, access to education, access to social resources, and so on,

Norms and tradition

It is largely believed that Norms and tradition are determining factor impacting women statues. this issue that nobody has taken as very important. I would argue that Norms and tradition are not constant; they are influenced by the processes that society is passing.

When a society feels threaten by Colonial power or occupying power and it Norms and tradition are disvalued, there are different mechanisms which are activated or used depending on the individual or group awareness level, these could vary from an obsession to keep the tradition as is and go back to roots. ( a reaction which is normally used by fundamentalist, and conservative groups) to total identification with the occupying or colonial power (or how ever to be perceived as superior to the self). ( a reaction which is normally used by individuals how have problem with their own) there are different mechanisms which are activated or used depending on the individual or group-awareness level. This could vary from an obsession to keep the tradition, like in culture shock you become more conservative and more concerned with your own tradition, or total identification with the occupying or colonial power as internalizing our inferiority and the inferiority imposed upon you.

Within that there are different coping mechanisms. That is why I think all the strategies we are using, most are related to one factor, and that is, I want to say before speaking about the future, I think that we have to think in a creative way, also in a spiral thinking so that we can really accumulate the influence of our world. I was writing a lot of things brought up by the panelists like taking into consideration the pluralism that exists in the Middle East, listening more to the pluralistic voices of women—and I totally agree; supporting local groups that are challenging the patriarchal system; gender equality in all levels—in school books and children’s literature, and so on; dealing with poverty and dealing with social issues of women; democratic and civil society supporting democracy values and civil society; networking and solidarity between the women against the hierarchy of suffering; cultural sensitivity—empowering projects that are relating with a creative and culturally-sensitive modes—quota plus and political participation; more economic support for women; more accessibility or support of women in NGOs; structures to strengthen women’s participation like the suggestion that was made; tie the support, the international aid that is given to the governments to the support of women’s issues. Thinking of women’s rights as human rights is very essential and I would add to security that I would look at the issue as a triangle of security, peace, and justice. I think with out one of them we cannot have the other. If you really want to support peace, we need to look at security in larger terms, not only in military terms, but security at home and inside and outside the society. Justice means reaching for all women, thinking of all women, and not only the decisionmaking women. If we can combine these strategies and support all the different efforts that are made on the grassroots and within women’s organizations and within the local structure, we could create more trends for change.

Men to need empowerment

One of the factors that struck us in working on women’s empowerment was that especially in marginalized communities where the men are also marginalized it is very important not only to empower women, but also to empower men because since we are empowering the women, there is a gap between what the women are experiencing today and what the men are. This gap could create a lot of conflict between men and women. I think this is a big challenge for all women’s organizations, how to raise and put this issue on our agenda, not only to work and empower women, but to look at it in a wider sense.