Henriette Dahan-Kalev - An Anatomy of Feminist Resistance: Rebel in the Wilderness

An Anatomy of Feminist Resistance

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham Boulder New York London

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For my son, Ayal, who missed many hours
of my time as a single mother with a career.

When Havatzelet Ingbar and Vicki Knafos rage was ignited and they began to march to the streets, rebelling against their oppressors, they did not imagine that their struggle would become a historical chapter in the struggle of marginalized women in Israel. All they wanted was to improve a little of their income and labor conditions. During that struggle, they learned as well as their oppressors to what extent human cruelty and struggle against it could result in. Indeed, their struggle did not put an end to the exploitation and oppression of marginalized women, but it violated for a short while the oppressors peace of mind. Ingbar and her friends started a strike that was aimed at putting an end to fourteen years of economic insecurity and repeated dismissal from the textile factory, where they worked. They ended up being the CEOs of that factory, a precedent in women labor history in Israel.

Knafo began her journey marching hundreds of kilometers from the remote town of Mitzpe Ramon to Jerusalem. All she wanted was to meet with the minister of finance, Benjamin Netanyahu. She wanted to explain to him that even the salaries she brought home from working two jobs were not enough to feed her children.

These two women found themselves going through a deep process of transformation that they did not expect to go through. Along their journey, they stood in front of the establishment: one which once seemed to them to be omnipotent but now was revealed to them as made up of a bunch of clerks and politicians that were clumsy, hollow, and limited in abilities. As opposed to that their personal reflection mirrored to them with surprise. The image of the weak single mother, a factory worker who lived on the social and peripheral margins in the remote Desert of the Negev, now looked at them from the media pages and the public sphere as glorious, fighting Amazons. However, as the days of struggle went by, these images transformed as well. Soberness and cynicism poured into their real lives, and these two charismatic women matured politically. Their consciousness transformed, and they widened their minds as to the power relations game the neoliberal rule was playing. They never left the southern desert, and their salary power did not improve much. However, they grew up to be well conscious democratic citizens and well aware women whose children and the people around them are inspired by.

The story which I bring here is a story of consciousness transformation. I had the privilege to know these women as I stepped out of the ivory tower and walked with them for a distance in dramatic parts of their lives paths. They opened their inner worlds to me, and I wouldnt have marched with them had I not opened mine to them as well. We looked back to the stormy events, sometimes with hesitance, discussed labor options that single mothers have and the differences from women who live in couples, what the talks with the politicians did to them, and who they became after the drama ended. We criticized the establishment and officials, but we sometimes understood the boundaries that modern and complex politics and economy could have. For all of these, I will always be in debt to these women who became model figures for fighting women in a wild era of global capitalism.

The struggles that are presented in this book took place in Israel. The reports in the media and documents in film series were in Hebrew. All the sources I used in this book, as well as the interviews, were in Hebrew. I made all the translations from Hebrew. Occasionally, I wrote words in Hebrew, in most cases slang, which were followed by suggested English translation.

Some of the analytical and academic literature is written in Hebrew. The bibliography list of the Hebrew items is brought in Hebrew with my translation to English.

As an academic, a social justice activist, and a single mother, I have always lived through the dilemma of either staying put securing the food I could bring home to put on my sons table or jeopardizing my job and going public to make a difference by criticizing and subverting power holders when injustices are committed.

I was fired from jobs, and my promotion was hindered more than once. The dilemma was always resolved when ignited with the rage against injustice I experienced. This is what always inspired and motivated my academic and public activism. The moral of this book is that rage has a right and moral side, too.

This book tells the story of rebellion by Havatzelet Ingbar and Vicki Knafo. I want to thank them for the nobleness with which they opened their hearts to me and enabled me to explore and understand the precarious life women sometimes live through.

I want to thank the editors at Lexington, especially Holly Buchanan, who patiently replied to all my queries and questions, and to the publishers who bore with me when my schedule kept changing.

Womens life story, as personal and private as it could be, is a source of significant knowledge on gender relations and feminism. By learning a life story of a woman, the construct of life conditions are unfolded in front of us. By telling life stories of particular women, alternative life options and power relations uncover various natures of gender power relations and of the ways in which women maneuver while interacting with other people. Focusing on telling one or more central aspects of particular womens lives can shed light on the ways in which deep and hidden social and cultural constructs chain women from within their conscious interpellation. Telling life stories present us with women agency at certain points in their lives. Therefore, discourse analysis of life stories of particular women can reveal ways of becoming a subordinated person, resisting the subordination of a certain woman as De Beauvoir's suggested (De Beauvoir, 1984). In other words, elaborating socialization forces or broad construction of power relations are not enough. It is necessary to search for specific time and space contexts and trace the particular constructs while they are at the making processes to understand how womens lives are constructed. The era and the particular culture are the flashlight under which we should search for explanations of gender formation and understand what women do with them. The feminist agenda of women who take action makes changes in their lives may work in particular cultural context but might be inefficient in another. Working agenda for women in the western world does not mean it works for women whose life conditions were modified in Middle Eastern communities. Looking into particular settings that shape womens lives on the way can tell about the challenges they face when paving their road to liberation. Each day, one woman is liberated, and she does it on her own terms under particular conditions.