Palestinian women on the brink of change

Feminists have hope

By Karin Laub, Associated Press

Palestinian women on the brink of change — Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4 April 1993 — Sarasota Herald-Tribune · Sarasota, Florida · 4 April 1993

Transcribed from the clipping

They live in a male-dominated society, but Palestinian women are being exposed to Western culture, and some want more than subservience. EL BIREH, Occupied West Bank — Sahar Sleim gets up at 4 a.m., sews blouses for Israeli shops for a dollar apiece, then throughout the day cooks, cleans, oversees her children's homework, sews again and collapses into bed at 9 p.m.

Her husband, Walid, often gripes when he comes home from his tailor shop because Sahar has no time for him. But she is quietly resisting his growing demands to give up her job. “I work so my children can finish university,” Mrs. Sleim says from behind the sewing machine in her living room. “I want my daughters to be independent.

I want them to get an education and only then to marry. I don't want them to repeat my mistakes.” Mrs. Sleim, 38, married Walid, a distant cousin, at age 19 under pressure from her father. She had hoped to study engineering by correspondence with Beirut University, but the dream died when the first of her six children was born.

“If I could choose now between a husband and university, I would choose university,” Mrs. Sleim says bitterly. “Sewing blouses is not enough.” Mrs. Sleim is among a growing number of younger Palestinian women who want to be more than housewives and mothers, completely subservient to fathers, brothers and husbands.

The social mores in the occupied lands are no different from most of the Arab world. But 25 years under Israeli occupation have exposed the West Bank and Gaza Strip to a Western industrialized society where contraceptives, college and careers are available to both sexes. Palestinian women's status has also been boosted, ironically, by resistance to occupation.

Women have played a prominent role in the five-year uprising in the occupied territories. But a full-scale feminist revolt seems far away. Women keep their complaints among themselves. Open dissent is severely dealt with: a daughter faces beatings, even banishment from the family, if she gets a job against her father's wishes.

In rare cases, unmarried women who eloped were killed by their fathers or brothers for besmirching the family honor. Still, some feminists see hope. They point to the negotiations with the Israelis for limited Palestinian self-rule in the territories as an opening.

“Perhaps it will be the start of establishing a new society,” says Zuheira Kamal, an adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team. But women will have to fight for any gains because the Palestinians' struggle for a state overrides all else, she adds.

For example, the Palestinian team appointed Kamal to draft women's rights legislation, such as equal pay, to be considered under autonomy. But she says she got the go-ahead only after much pleading. While many younger Palestinian women say they want change, they dislike what they see as the lonely and often frenetic lives of their Western sisters.

“I would like Palestinian women to be free, but within the framework of Arab tradition,” says Mrs. Sleim, who lives in El Bireh, a town just north of Jerusalem. “The family should stay strong. I don't want to turn my children loose when they are 18.” Indeed, the traditional life has much to offer, especially the warmth and security of family.

Household chores and child care are shared by many. After a woman gives birth, female relatives for the first weeks take care of her house and the older children. Women can drop off their kids at a relative's without prior notice. Mothers, daughters and neighbors often cook together while sitting in a circle and chatting.

The elderly are cared for at home, and old-age homes are unheard of. But the system only works because every family member obeys the rules, which are enforced by men. Fathers and older brothers decide whether girls should study and whom they should marry. Husbands determine how many children the wife will have, what the wife should wear, where she should socialize.

Divorcees are stigmatized. Polygamy is still practiced, though it is PLEASE SEE PALESTINIANS ON 6F

Context added by this archive

The fifth printing of this dispatch in the archive, and the only one to run three months after the others. It is also the only one to add a standfirst written by the paper rather than the reporter, telling the reader what the story means before the story begins. The clipping ends at PLEASE SEE PALESTINIANS ON 6F; the continuation is not in the scan.

Cite this item

"Palestinian women on the brink of change," Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 4 April 1993. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1993-018. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1993-018