The Women’s Movement in Palestine between 1929 – 1939
This paper will explore the Palestinian Women’s movement between 1929, when it roughly began as a nationalist movement to the first intifada in 1939. The Women’s Movement in Palestine between these 10 years was unique and different from those that have occurred in other nations, because it is not a “feminist movement” as such. In that, it did not strive for political, legal, social and economic equality of women. Rather, it emerged after the Wailing Wall incident in 1929 as a movement that supported the larger male-led nationalist movement. However, the Women’s Movement made a conscious effort to distinguish itself from its counterpart and remain more unified than its male-dominated counterpart, despite the fact that most of the women in the movement were married to prominent men in the nationalist movement.
I am interested in the various strategies the women used in their nationalist movement and would like to explore how they differed from that of the men. I want to explore how and why they tried to differentiate themselves from their male counterparts and why it was so important to not be seen as an auxiliary movement. To this end, I wish to critically analyze some of the strategies used by the Women’s Movement. According to Flieschmann, Palestinian women were highly conscious of how they presented themselves in publicly. In dealing with a western audience, they portrayed themselves as modern and elite Arab women to garner the sympathy of those abroad. In dealing with the British within Palestine, they highlighted their tradition as Arab women and how that conferred in them special rights to live with dignity and away from men, while blaming the British to force them from breaking these traditions in order to fight against their policies. I am also interested in how and whether peasant and poorer women were involved in the movement, and if so, whether their involvement was strategic and added to the strength of the movement.
Finally, I would like to understand what exactly caused the demise of the movement in 1939. While some sources say it could have been because the men in the community wanted the movement to maintain tradition and get back to their traditional roles as women. The British are