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The Arab Revolutions: Rethinking Women’s Activism in Palestine
Abstract
From virginity tests in Egypt to the World Press Photo of the Year for 2011 (a –portrait of a niqab adorned Yemeni woman holding a half-naked wounded male relative in her arms), the issues of gender equality and sexuality have been central to discussions on the ongoing Arab revolutions. The emphasis on the role of women in these revolutions, the “gender solidarity” in Tahrir Square or what some called the “ethics of Tahrir,” and Tawakkul Karman’s Nobel peace prize, appeared to signal social change alongside political upheaval. Yet, young Arab activists were disappointed when out of five hundred and eight seats in the Egyptian Parliament, only seven women were elected and two appointed as members. Nonetheless the images of a variety of women in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain fearlessly leading demonstrations and unabashedly demanding a participatory role provided visual and moral inspiration to women throughout the Arab world. For Palestinian women, these images and experiences were a welcome corrective to now two decades of the professionalization of women’s movements. As scholars have shown, since the Oslo Accords the framework of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has effectively contained and muffled the dynamic and influential Palestinian women’s movement, subject it to the conceptual and practical conditions of foreign funding and at times implicating it with the corruption associated with the Palestinian Authority. In this dilapidated context, the last year of revolution inspired Palestinian women to return once again to an activist and community based framework in their struggle against both colonial and social oppression and domination. This paper charts a map of the role of women’s movements in Palestinian politics today. It explores how the last year of Arab revolutions influenced Palestinians visions of and strategies for gender liberation and equality. Did the revolutions, in all their varieties and complexities, provide alternative models for organizing dissent and popular mobilization? Was social hierarchy challenged or reified? This paper reveals how different strata of Palestinian women, across class, rural-urban, and generational divides engaged these questions and reformulated their visions for the future of gender equality and popular resistance.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
Gender/Women's Studies