February 04, 2005 - (Haaretz) Knowledge, as everyone knows, is power. Hence it comes as no surprise that much of the information about the systematic discrimination against women in Israel is hidden from the public as well as organizations that seek to promote the welfare of women. Dr. Ruth Halperin Kaddari, a professor of law, bravely says so in her new book, "A State of Their Own: Women in Israel."

Halperin Kaddari headed the official study on the status of women carried out by the State of Israel upon signing the international treaty known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). While the study was underway, she encountered a serious lack of data. Indeed, even when statistics are available, they are simply not published. The state is not aware of how poor the female population is, for example, because the official poverty reports of the National Insurance Institute are not broken down by gender. For the same reason, one cannot compare the socioeconomic status of families headed by single mothers as opposed to single fathers. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) has data on women that have never appeared in any official publication.

It gets worse: After the report was written and the United Nations committee discussed it and published its findings and recommendations, Halperin Kaddari expected the material to be translated into Hebrew and Arabic, as required, and submitted to the relevant state institutions. But this never happened. In consequence, a great opportunity for improving the lot of women in Israel basically went down the drain.

Halperin Kaddari's book, published by University of Pennsylvania Press, is based on this report, so that information about Israeli women is now accessible to American college students and anyone who orders English books from Amazon.com. But the book won't reach university students in Israel, much less the government ministries and public bodies that should be reading it as a tool for policy planning, fighting discrimination and bettering the status of Israeli women. They can go on enjoying their blissful ignorance, which conveniently relieves them of the need to act.

The severe shortage of data exposed in this book fits in with Halperin Kaddari's major conclusion: The status of women in Israel is not the outcome of any active, operative policy, but a direct consequence of general societal trends. It is not thought, planning and premeditated action that keep women from moving up the ladder, but rather a broad array of social, economic and political variables that also affect the standing of women. To put it simply: Like many other aspects of life in Israel, there is no planning, no vision, no orderly long-range thinking. There are "spontaneous" developments.

Israel may have the most progressive laws, but they are not enforced. The systematic refusal to know - to the point where a pledge to translate the report of a UN committee is ignored - ensures that this dynamic is not about to change any time soon. Thus it is important, even imperative, that a budgeted government agency such as the Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women, affiliated with the Prime Minister's Office, translate the book into Hebrew. It should be posted on the Internet to make it accessible to all and updated periodically to insure that the information remains relevant.

Unique breadth

"Women in Israel" does not pretend to offer new and surprising findings. It is a compendium of data gathered by state institutions (such as the CBS), private foundations (such as the Adva Center) and academic researchers (among them Nina Toren, Shlomo Hershkowitz and the late Dafna Izraeli). What makes the book unique is its breadth. Over 12 chapters and nearly 300 pages of text, the author presents facts and figures on attitudes toward women in the fields of health, education and welfare, in the workplace, in the public eye, as homemakers, as victims of sexual abuse.

The statistics, from the 1990s and early 21st century, come together to create a picture of systematic neglect, deep-seated apathy and profound bias against women. Halperin Kaddari shows that the problem is compounded by the religious-clerical character of the state, the unrelenting preoccupation with security and existential concerns. These only heighten the discrimination, turning prejudice against women into something "natural" and "par for the course," keeping it off the public agenda.

Some of us read the reports published in the daily newspapers. If they are horrifying enough, they may get a few moments' airtime. We know that medical research tends to focus more on "male" illnesses rather than those typical of women (such as breast cancer). We know that the subsidized drug basket is more likely to benefit men than women, and that neglect of the elderly is basically neglect of the weakest female population. We know that Israel has the highest rate in the world of teenage girls who feel socially pressured to go on starvation diets that ruin their health.

Some of us are well acquainted with the "glass-ceiling" syndrome. We know that while most of the teachers in Israel are women, men who work in the school system earn more and become principals and senior educators. Some of us are familiar with the studies showing that Israeli academic institutions, whose job is to provide women with the skills they need to close social gaps, are among the greatest discriminators around.

While the bulk of university students are female, and some 40 percent of the lecturers are women, only 20 percent of associate professors are women and 10 percent of those granted full professorship are women. Most of us know that Israel's embrace of patriarchal family laws espoused by various ethnic groups severely compromises the civil rights of Israeli women and may entangle them in a variety of legal-religious complications. Until now, no book has fully incorporated all this data, laying out all the facts and figures, bringing them into the light of day and analyzing them without fear. Therein lies the great importance of this book.

Its major weakness is that like many of the books put out by prestigious academic publishers, it was out of date even before it hit the bookshelves. The material is important and enlightening - but most of the figures were accurate a decade ago. Hence the book contributes more to a historical understanding of women's rights in Israel than to what is happening today. This is a problem that affects all academic texts presenting statistics that change over time. A frequently updated Internet site would thus serve the purpose much more effectively.

Little change

So what has changed in the status of Israeli women over the past four years? Not much, and not for the better. The lack of vision and planning is the same. Women continue to be dragged along with economic and social trends, and since both the economy and society are going downhill, so is the plight of women. With the high rates of unemployment in recent years, a growing number of women have lost their jobs and income, bringing with it problems related to health and housing. As working conditions and the status of workers decline, more and more women are losing basic social benefits and are working under less favorable conditions. As the gap between rich and poor widens, more and more women are thrust to the bottom of the barrel, along with their children. As violence spirals, more and more women are murdered, beaten and raped. The progressive laws designed to protect women are not being enforced.

Beyond that, in recent years women have begun to suffer from a kind of backlash connected to their struggle for advancement. Perhaps because Israeli women have chalked up some small achievements in the late 20th century, the public (especially the male public) has a sense not only that women enjoy full equality, but that they have taken over certain fields. The response (not always conscious, but fairly widespread) is that women are promoted less and even pushed out of positions of power and replaced by men, who have gone back to conquering key job slots. One sees this in the upper echelons of the civil service (the Justice Ministry and district attorneys' offices are excellent examples), in the army and in private foundations.

The public has been slow to react. The gender equality myth still reigns, and people refuse to look beyond it. The public in general is not sensitive to blatant instances of bias, exclusion and silencing of women. Let this small, telling example suffice: The opinion pages of Haaretz, a platform for all kinds of ideas in the public arena, feature some 30 writers a week. Of these, maybe two or three are women - in other words, less than 10 percent. This is a persistent and ongoing trend.

Is there any ray of light? Hopefully, young Israeli women, stronger and more assertive than their predecessors, will be more clear-eyed, and less fearful and shy in their demands to know and change things.

From: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=women&itemNo=536018