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COPYRIGHT 2007 Feminist Studies, Inc.
MOST STUDIES ANALYZING the Bedouin women of the Negev in Israel describe this population as marginalized and powerless, blaming the traditional nature of Bedouin society. (1) This body of literature describes the Bedouin woman as a victim dependent on the male collective for support, unable to fight or cope in her own society. Nonetheless, a few studies describe her as an empowered contributor to society or to social change, through the theme of secondary or higher education. (2) These latter studies, most of which were carried out by women, point to the Bedouin woman's agency while highlighting the interaction between the power of tradition and the effects of colonization.
The current study, which analyzes the Bedouin woman's power and contests her marginalized status, contributes to existing literature in several ways. First, although studies of the Bedouin community in general and of Bedouin women in particular have focused on a single generation, the current research examines three generations-daughters (schoolgirls and dropouts), mothers, and grandmothers. This helps to highlight two main issues: whether these women, as three generations that live in the same space but encounter different realities, have different ways of struggling with their lives and whether one generation influences the next in their ways of struggling. For example, is power passed from mother to daughter as knowledge to contest, adapt, and transform her reality?
Second, most studies have focused on more privileged Bedouin women. For instance, Anat Passate-Shubert and Ronit Halevi (3) analyzed Bedouin women who studied at institutions of higher learning, describing them as leaders and change agents. In contrast, the present study looks not only at the struggle of educated girls but also sheds light on a more neglected group of Bedouin women--girls who have dropped out of school--and aims to show their own way of struggling as different from that of their educated peers.
Third, other studies of female dropouts from the Bedouin community have described the girls as objects rather than subjects. For instance, as Jewish men, Yosef Ben-David and Ron Hos (4) could not enter the female space in this gender-segregated society, for Bedouins forbid any public contact between women and men. They were therefore forced to interview the dropout girls through informants from the local village. In contrast, as a Bedouin woman, I was able to hear the voices of these girls directly, interviewing them face to face and entering their world. Moreover, although Ben-David and Hos focused on the reasons for dropping out, mostly blaming the traditional nature of Bedouin society, my study examines the ways these girls cope and struggle in their everyday lives with internal Bedouin and external colonial forces that cause them to leave school, reflecting the girls' seeds of resistance and untapped power within the context of Bedouin society. The aim of this study is to show that women from the margins--that is, those who are not major actors in the public sphere and are essentially invisible--also have an individual face and, more importantly, have their own way of seeing their lives that is both similar to and different from that of the educated girls.
THE DUAL MARGINALITY OF BEDOUIN WOMEN
The Bedouin woman is marginalized twice: once, as part of a Bedouin minority among a Jewish Israeli majority and an Arab minority, and, again, as a female in a Bedouin male-dominated society. This dual discrimination affects women's status in all aspects of their lives.
Ethnic Marginality in a Jewish-Majority State. The Bedouins of the Negev are among the Palestinian Arabs who remained in Israel after the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 and today comprise a minority group among Israeli citizens. From 1948 until the late 1960s, the Negev Bedouins lived under the Israeli military administration, as did all Arabs in Israel. This meant that they were isolated from Arab populations in other parts of Israel and needed special permits to leave their restricted area in search of jobs or education.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Israeli state developed plans to resettle the entire Negev Bedouin population into seven towns. However, only 50 percent of the Bedouin population of 120,000 was actually transferred to the planned towns (known as "recognized villages"), while the other half continue to live in "unrecognized villages" in the former restricted territory on their own lands. These unrecognized villages lack basic services, including plumbing, electricity, roads, clinics, and high schools.
Bedouins (whether in recognized or unrecognized villages) are discriminated against by Jewish Israeli society and marginalized within Arab society in all aspects of life. They receive few economic, cultural, and social resources. Like other Arab communities, they tend to be among the poorest people in Israel; they lack an industrial tax base, depending more heavily on residential property taxes, and they receive less money from the state than Jewish localities. Arab schools lack sufficient classrooms, and existing ones (especially among the Bedouins) are in poor condition, with fewer libraries, sports facilities, and laboratories than Jewish schools.
Like other Arabs, Bedouins are affected by such political issues as the Intifada and the politicization of Islam, but their main concerns are the struggle for recognition of their land and daily survival. Analysis of the broader political context is beyond the scope of this paper; instead, the focus here is on the day-to-day lives of Bedouin women.
Gender Marginality in Bedouin Society. Bedouin women are subject not only to ethnic discrimination as Bedouins, but also to gender discrimination as women. Male domination is legitimized in Bedouin society by two cultural codes primarily affecting the lives of women: the sexual and the collective.
Sexuality plays a dual role in a woman's life. As a vehicle of procreation, she is both marginalized and important. Her primary reproductive role emphasizes her connection to uncontrolled nature, which restricts her ability to be morally equal to men. But her procreative power also makes the woman the center of homemaking and the bearer of tradition; as such, she is highly protected by Bedouin traditional law, and any offense against her may lead to revenge by her collective male kin. (5)
Similarly, girls are not permitted to interact with the male public sphere. (6) The need for modesty is reflected in the concept of tahashum (shamefulness and self-control), which requires modest, traditional dress for girls and women alike. In this context, the veil is meant to defend females from sexual harassment. (7)
At the same time, the collective code plays an important role in female marginalization. The Bedouin woman is driven to marriage for the sake of the collective rather than for her own personal interest. As such, she is meant to increase the size and power of the group (her extended family). Marriage occurs according to tribal relationships and always takes place within tribal limits. The collective code also infiltrates the individual's life; any person who wants to be honored in her/his group has to obey the group's codes by unconditional loyalty to the tribe, and any shameful behavior weakens the power of the group. In order to prevent this, women are constantly watched. (8)
In the name of these two codes, many Bedouin women have restricted access to the public sphere, especially to education and employment. To this day, many girls do not attend school because their families are afraid they will bring shame to the tribe by meeting boys from other tribes. Thus, we can see that these codes place the Bedouin woman in a paradoxical position: in her important role as honor preserver, she is highly restricted.
The Intersection of Ethnic and Gender Marginality. The Bedouin woman's gender marginality is exacerbated by her association with an ethnic minority that is subject to discrimination. This ethnic discrimination takes place within an organizational process created by the Israeli state, whose victims are Israeli Arabs in general, the Bedouin community in particular and, even more so, the Bedouin women within that community, especially in regard to the areas of education and employment. (9)
When half the Bedouin population of the Negev was displaced from the desert to recognized villages, they benefited from a variety of services--stores, banks, parks, schools. However, most of these benefits were, in practice, denied to women, owing to their lack of access to and familiarity with the public sphere. (10)
Before the forced move to the villages, the livelihood of the Bedouins was rooted in agriculture and herding. The division of labor between men and women was clear cut: the man was primarily responsible for guarding the land and receiving visitors, while the woman was in charge of the farming itself. Thus, men were largely dependent on the decisions and knowledge of their wives in all that concerned the family's domestic livelihood. The Bedouin woman was also invested with a considerable degree of power that involved participation in decision making about such issues as relations with neighbors and the marriage of her daughters. (11) However, with the transition to the village, her roles were abrogated by modern services, and she became socially useless and unproductive in her own domestic space. At the same time, she lacked skills to work outside the house, and the state did not provide her with an appropriate workplace that embraces Bedouin customs. As a consequence, most of the men work outside...
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