An Anatomy of Feminist Resistance: Rebel in the Wilderness

by Henriette Dahan Kalev

Overview

The book explores the story of two women living in remote town Mitzpe Ramon, in the Negev Desert in south Israel. These women lived in poverty and worked under oppressive conditions for all their lives until one day they began to resist. Standing for the rights of working women and mothers, they led protests and strikes that shook the entire country for weeks.

In An Anatomy of Feminist Resistance: Rebel in the Wilderness, Dahan Kalev’s innovative perspective examines both the public and private spheres of these woman’s lives and reveals the existence of a third sphere in which women are able to find their voices. This study deciphers what causes women to accept conditions of oppression, under what circumstances will women begin to resist, and what are the political transformations rebellious women undergo while fighting oppression.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498524353
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	11/27/2018
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.29(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.96(d)

About the Author

Henriette Dahan Kalev is professor emeritus of political science at the Ben Gurion University

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

1 Feminism: An Unending Project 1

2 Gender Conceptual Revision and Methodological Toolbox 11

3 Laboratory of Humanities Is the Real Life: Analysis without Amnesia 23

4 Two Decades of the Welfare State Disintegration: The Women's Dismissal First 45

5 A Woman Employee in the Textile Factory 65

6 Can a Factory Worker Become a CEO Overnight? 99

7 How the "Private-Public" Stereotypical System Works 115

8 Post Facts of Feminist Development 135

9 Vicki Knafo: Radical Rebellion of a Single Mother 143

10 The Journey from Mitzpe Ramon to Jerusalem 151

11 Back to the Body, Sexuality, and to Femininity 167

12 The Journey in the Twilight Zone 185

13 Theoretical Conclusions 205

Bibliography 217

Index 223

About the Author 231

Editorial Reviews

Henriette Dahan has written a paradigmatic demonstration of the feminist dictum that the ‘personal is the political,’ for both the subjects of research and the feminist scholar. She tells the stories of two Israeli women of Middle Eastern background who are textile workers in a marginalized location as they resist the interwoven power relations of gender subordination, ethnic inequality and economic exploitation by global capitalism. By attending to the women’s particular transformation of consciousness, Dahan provides uniquely insightful analysis and trenchant critique of the locality of global patriarchy.

Jon Simons

Henriette Dahan Kalev’s new book is, as her previous scholarship, a delightful read: It is challenging, educating, eye-opening, and even moving. Her writing offers an enlightening analysis of the relationships between women, society and the economy, as well as the relationships between questions of scholarship, authorship and methodology. It is a brilliant case in which the book and the cover, the “what” and the “how,” interact in new and original ways, and create a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

Zvi Triger