Faces of Femi­nism IV: The Defi­ni­tion of Encourag­ment

During the project in Israel and Pales­tine our repor­ters had the chance to meet with diffe­rent women. Hanna Hörn­lein talked with both a Bedouin woman and an ultra-orthodox Jewish woman about their roles in society, their inter­ac­tions with men, and how they are able to express their indi­vi­dua­lity. Which influences shape their iden­tity? And how do we, as visi­tors, start reflec­ting on our own roles in this process?

I met Muntaha in a smokey Café in Ramallah to talk about my article and, like many times in rese­arch of the iden­tity topic of our project, about femi­nism. She studied gender studies in London, and I asked her about her personal moti­va­tion to choose this subject. What was her long-term aim? Besides the wish to encou­rage young women and to change patri­ar­chal thin­king, she wanted to create a femi­ni­stic, Arab perspec­tive, and leave the white bubble we’re trapped in: ​„It is because white femi­nism doesn’t work for me“, she explains. When she started getting in touch with the topic, she read a lot of white femi­nist lite­ra­ture, such as Virginia Woolf. However, she longed for a theory of gender and femi­nism concer­ning her as an Arab woman. 

At the moment she is a teacher at Birzeit Univer­sity specia­lized in psycho­logy and gender studies. In her job she teaches inter­sec­tional femi­nism which chal­lenges the tradi­tional white femi­nism in many ways. ​„White women are trying to save POC women from POC men. They want to be the savior, although they have no idea how our system and culture work“. This attempt from white people – not just women – to be ​„the rescuer“ has happened many times in our colo­nial history, and it has to do with the pater­na­li­stic thin­king that prevents theo­ries from being adapted to diffe­rent cultural areas. ​„You can’t apply a general thing as femi­nism on diverse tradi­tions, reli­gion, poli­tics and laws,“ Muntaha says. 

Throug­hout history Pales­ti­nian women played a major role in shaping the Pales­ti­nian country, she explains, but then after the colo­niza­tion, the pres­sure of men and the patri­archy began. Pales­tine was reduced to Islam and seen as a society mainly ruled by men. Many aspects of this reli­gion were misun­ders­tood or misin­ter­preted by other states. ​„Maybe people see Islam and its origins the wrong way,“ Muntaha considers. It was also a matter of showing the truth behind the prophets‘ life and biography. ​„A lot of these men were married to strong, inde­pen­dent busi­ness­women,“ she explains. In her opinion, teaching can change society. She tries to give the young Pales­ti­nian gene­ra­tion the ability to ques­tion ever­y­thing and to create their own lives. 

But how are women able to express them­selves in Pales­ti­nian society nowa­days? Accor­ding to Muntaha, she is surrounded by two diffe­rent types of women: on the one hand, inde­pen­dent, working women, who share the same inte­rests as she does, and find them­selves in equal rela­ti­onships. While on the other hand there are her students, all with diffe­rent back­grounds, but they share a similar mindset and struggle with their own iden­ti­ties. Refer­ring to the poli­tical disputes and discourses, they always have to face the ques­tion: do I define myself mainly through my reli­gion or my natio­na­lity? Or – facing all the oppres­sion and conflicts – is it being a human, without preju­dices, which matters most?

„You don’t have to go to the top – you have a lot of space,“ Muntaha says, refer­ring to indi­vi­dual freedom of woman and femi­nism. She says that it is about expan­ding the comfort zone, giving advice, and showing women how to have a decent discus­sion with male members of their family, fighting for their rights. The starting point for her objec­tive in encou­ra­ging women is the family. Lear­ning how to have a dialogue with your father, demo­cra­ti­cally engage with him, beco­ming friends with your brot­hers so they start respec­ting you and don’t see you as a ​„servant, are all stra­te­gies she offers her students to fight for their basic rights. ​„You can’t destroy it,“ she says, ​„so you have to decon­s­truct it. It is in our hands to make the future“.