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Palestinian Women: Narrative Histories and Gendered Memory
Palestinian Women is the first book to examine and document the experiences and the historical narrative of ordinary Palestinian women who witnessed the events of 1948 and became involuntary citizens of the State of Israel.
Told in their own words, the women's experiences serve as a window for examining the complex intersections of gender, nationalism and citizenship in a situation of ongoing violent political conflict.
Known in Palestinian discourse as the 'Nakbeh', or the 'Catastrophe', these events of 60 years ago still have a powerful resonance in contemporary Palestinian-Jewish relations in the State of Israel and in the act of narrating these stories, the author argues that the realm of memory is a site of commemoration and resistance.
Told in their own words, the women's experiences serve as a window for examining the complex intersections of gender, nationalism and citizenship in a situation of ongoing violent political conflict.
Known in Palestinian discourse as the 'Nakbeh', or the 'Catastrophe', these events of 60 years ago still have a powerful resonance in contemporary Palestinian-Jewish relations in the State of Israel and in the act of narrating these stories, the author argues that the realm of memory is a site of commemoration and resistance.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 25, 2023
Great book. I learned a lot about a subaltern population I would’ve otherwise known very little about, though I live in Palestine. Very clear and coherent. I do wish we heard more of the women's stories—though over 100 women were interviewed, it seemed that, in general, only a handful of names were repeated. I was most immersed in the parts where the women talked for themselves, and believe this book would benefit from a greater balance of that raw material and the author’s analysis. This point aside, I would easily recommend this to anyone interested in gender, Palestine/Israel, and oral history.
February 5, 2018
The oral histories documented in this book are crucial to shedding light on the inhumane crimes committed during Nakba, as well as to understanding woman's position in traditional Palestinian society. Brilliantly compiled and written, Kassem effectively removes herself from the narrative, giving voice to stories that otherwise would not be shared with a broad audience or perhaps, with anyone at all. The stories and analysis in this book make it one of a kind.
July 24, 2018
The narrative being told is important and Fatma Kassem waa able to tell a story that is impossible due to contested nature of the subject matter. I hope there was more narrative and less analysis of the themes created by the author.
May 1, 2012
This book is a series of accounts by Palestinian women who lived through the ‘Nakba’ of 1948, in which they lost their homes and were either forced to leave the newly-formed state of Israel or were internally displaced within it.
Except that it’s not. Not really. We don’t really hear much from the women themselves – only short quotes in certain places, to illustrate a particular point. We don’t get to know each woman clearly enough to feel the full power of her story from start to finish.
For a long time, we don’t get to the women at all. We hear about Foucault’s theory of the historical past as a rhetorical construct for the present. We have a chapter on the methodological aspects of telling life stories, another chapter on the author’s own life story, and detailed scrutiny of her effect on the women’s stories, their reactions to the tape recorder, etc etc. We’re 80 pages in before we get to what we came here for, the stories of Palestinian women.
The book was initially a PhD thesis, and it shows. It shows in the style of writing, which is academic and often quite dry, in the extensive quoting of Foucault, Spivak, Said, Minh-Ha et al, in the constant analysis of process and acknowledgement of flaws and biases, and a lot of other tactics which are perfectly necessary in order to forestall the potential questions and objections of PhD supervisors, but which tend to distract and/or annoy the general reader.
It shows also, however, in positive ways. PhD theses, after all, require rigour in the methodology and depth in the analysis, and this book displays both of those merits. I loved the analysis of language and the body, for example:
"In my reading, when they describe Israeli ‘entry’ into the cities or villages in 1948 the choice of language used by the women I interviewed is linked to the penetration of the female body."
Kassem then explores the multiple ways in which this is relevant, from the obvious piercing of Palestinian defences to the fact that brides on their wedding night are, like Palestinians in 1948, inadequately prepared for the sexual act, and that a woman experiences a ‘conspiracy of silence’ from her family, similar to that within the Arab ‘family’ who knew what was going to happen but did nothing.
I also liked the stories of people who tried to return to their homes, as any people return to their homes after a war, but were called “infiltrators” and forcibly expelled. What struck me most was how the women themselves used this term “infiltrator” to describe themselves or their family members who tried to return to their homes. It reminded me how easily we can adopt language that doesn’t reflect our own view of reality.
The account of women’s clothing was also interesting, and much more nuanced than the total condemnation of the hijab commonly seen in Western media. Kassem recognises that conservative religious dress can be seen as an assertion of male power over women’s bodies, but also points out many examples of young women choosing to wear this style of their own accord, in the face of disapproval from older family members. In the context of Palestinians living in Israel, wearing full Muslim dress is often seen as a rebellious, political act. One woman, for example, lost her teaching job over it.
"Covering the body from head to toe could be interpreted as women complying with the religious imperative to discipline their body and reproduce their subordination. However, the choice by a young, educated woman to dress in such a fashion that ‘this woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer (Fanon, 1965: 44) … can also be interpreted as an act of resistance; a refusal to comply…"
My overall conclusion: lots of good stuff here, but could have done with a rewrite to make it more appealing to a general audience rather than an academic one.
Except that it’s not. Not really. We don’t really hear much from the women themselves – only short quotes in certain places, to illustrate a particular point. We don’t get to know each woman clearly enough to feel the full power of her story from start to finish.
For a long time, we don’t get to the women at all. We hear about Foucault’s theory of the historical past as a rhetorical construct for the present. We have a chapter on the methodological aspects of telling life stories, another chapter on the author’s own life story, and detailed scrutiny of her effect on the women’s stories, their reactions to the tape recorder, etc etc. We’re 80 pages in before we get to what we came here for, the stories of Palestinian women.
The book was initially a PhD thesis, and it shows. It shows in the style of writing, which is academic and often quite dry, in the extensive quoting of Foucault, Spivak, Said, Minh-Ha et al, in the constant analysis of process and acknowledgement of flaws and biases, and a lot of other tactics which are perfectly necessary in order to forestall the potential questions and objections of PhD supervisors, but which tend to distract and/or annoy the general reader.
It shows also, however, in positive ways. PhD theses, after all, require rigour in the methodology and depth in the analysis, and this book displays both of those merits. I loved the analysis of language and the body, for example:
"In my reading, when they describe Israeli ‘entry’ into the cities or villages in 1948 the choice of language used by the women I interviewed is linked to the penetration of the female body."
Kassem then explores the multiple ways in which this is relevant, from the obvious piercing of Palestinian defences to the fact that brides on their wedding night are, like Palestinians in 1948, inadequately prepared for the sexual act, and that a woman experiences a ‘conspiracy of silence’ from her family, similar to that within the Arab ‘family’ who knew what was going to happen but did nothing.
I also liked the stories of people who tried to return to their homes, as any people return to their homes after a war, but were called “infiltrators” and forcibly expelled. What struck me most was how the women themselves used this term “infiltrator” to describe themselves or their family members who tried to return to their homes. It reminded me how easily we can adopt language that doesn’t reflect our own view of reality.
The account of women’s clothing was also interesting, and much more nuanced than the total condemnation of the hijab commonly seen in Western media. Kassem recognises that conservative religious dress can be seen as an assertion of male power over women’s bodies, but also points out many examples of young women choosing to wear this style of their own accord, in the face of disapproval from older family members. In the context of Palestinians living in Israel, wearing full Muslim dress is often seen as a rebellious, political act. One woman, for example, lost her teaching job over it.
"Covering the body from head to toe could be interpreted as women complying with the religious imperative to discipline their body and reproduce their subordination. However, the choice by a young, educated woman to dress in such a fashion that ‘this woman who sees without being seen frustrates the colonizer (Fanon, 1965: 44) … can also be interpreted as an act of resistance; a refusal to comply…"
My overall conclusion: lots of good stuff here, but could have done with a rewrite to make it more appealing to a general audience rather than an academic one.
November 30, 2011
I'm sorry to say this book was a great disapointment to me. When it arrived I was excited about it, I expected real world naratives of Palestinian women and when it arrived my mother said it sounded interesting and asked if she could borrow it when I was done. A week into reading it I warned her she woldn't want to bother.
It is, in essence, an accadmic work that someone has seen fit to publish. The entire thing is written in the extremely exclusionary terms of accademia, I had trouble with some of the terminology and I have an accademic background (admitedly in a different field, but I'm used to reading the kind of prose presented here but still struggled). I can't help but find the use of langauge strange, as what the author is supposedly attempting to do is take the lived experiences of these women and move them into the public domain, yet the langauge she uses is highly exclusionary. She also includes in this sections on methodology and how her experiences might have biased her as an interpreter which, which perfectly appropriate and even necessary for an accademic work, have no place in a more mainstream work.
But what annoyed and disapointed me most was the minescule amout of time given to actually retelling the stories of these women as opposed to Kassem's analysis of what she thinks they meant. I'd expected a large focus on retelling and recording the experiences of these women, instead we have lengthly discourse of what Kaseem thinks a phrase or a wrod she's picked up on means, sometimes this is extrapolated to what seemed to me absurp proportions. Any mention of the word body was taken as reflective of the country, at one point. Any mention of a corpse was not about the horror of war but about the symbolic castration of the palestinian male. Any mention of pregnancy was about focusing on women as bringers of life and active shapers of their own destiny as opposed to it being bloody hard to flee when heavily pregnant. I think some of the analysis was massivley overstretched but, to return to my main point, I can't be sure becasue we're never told these women's actual stories.
And that kills it for me. She talks about the importance of these women's stories, but she never lets these women tell their stories. She tells us what she thinks these women wanted to say and the meaning she draws from their stories but, in fact, never lets them tell their own stories so while saying she's giving voice to these women what she's actual doing is taking away their voices again and replacing them with her own.
It is, in essence, an accadmic work that someone has seen fit to publish. The entire thing is written in the extremely exclusionary terms of accademia, I had trouble with some of the terminology and I have an accademic background (admitedly in a different field, but I'm used to reading the kind of prose presented here but still struggled). I can't help but find the use of langauge strange, as what the author is supposedly attempting to do is take the lived experiences of these women and move them into the public domain, yet the langauge she uses is highly exclusionary. She also includes in this sections on methodology and how her experiences might have biased her as an interpreter which, which perfectly appropriate and even necessary for an accademic work, have no place in a more mainstream work.
But what annoyed and disapointed me most was the minescule amout of time given to actually retelling the stories of these women as opposed to Kassem's analysis of what she thinks they meant. I'd expected a large focus on retelling and recording the experiences of these women, instead we have lengthly discourse of what Kaseem thinks a phrase or a wrod she's picked up on means, sometimes this is extrapolated to what seemed to me absurp proportions. Any mention of the word body was taken as reflective of the country, at one point. Any mention of a corpse was not about the horror of war but about the symbolic castration of the palestinian male. Any mention of pregnancy was about focusing on women as bringers of life and active shapers of their own destiny as opposed to it being bloody hard to flee when heavily pregnant. I think some of the analysis was massivley overstretched but, to return to my main point, I can't be sure becasue we're never told these women's actual stories.
And that kills it for me. She talks about the importance of these women's stories, but she never lets these women tell their stories. She tells us what she thinks these women wanted to say and the meaning she draws from their stories but, in fact, never lets them tell their own stories so while saying she's giving voice to these women what she's actual doing is taking away their voices again and replacing them with her own.
February 28, 2015
This is an excellent book. The research and the story leading to it are fascinating and insightful. It felt a privilege to read the stories of the women interviewed and yet I didn't feel I got enough of them. I liked the author's analysis but at times found it difficult/clumsy. I'm putting that down to losses in translation. Perhaps analogies of Palestine as a meek bride and Israel as an aggressive groom work better in Arabic/Hebrew, in English it felt distasteful. But language aside, the research is very good. It's an essential step in keeping the stories of these women alive. I love the purpose and will with which this book has been written.
April 6, 2017
This is a PhD turned into a book and not surprisingly it is highly theoretical and deals with the complexity of intersectionality in today's Israel. Gender, class, religion, ethnicity, nationalism and citizenship all intersect in telling the stories of women who were alive in 1948 and have experienced their lives as Palestinian Israelis (deliberately not the preferred Israeli term of Arab-Israelis). The author comes from the same community and the who is part of this community. Most of the women interviewed are illiterate, having been denied an education by the state and are now old. Without research such as this their voices would disappear. Recording and reflecting on their voices is clearly a labour of love as well as an intellectual journey for the author. In fact, the story is as much about the author as about the interviewees and her own struggle to write what she wanted from a Palestinian perspective in an Israeli institution. This book ensures that her voice and those of the women enter the public sphere, but that was not easy – the force of the Israeli colonial state apparatus as well as the patriarchal apparatus of gendered power relations meant many women refused to be interviewed and many tried to silence her voice in the academy. My only criticism of the book is it is too heavy on analysis and too light on the voices. I understand the theoretical position she is coming from, but I felt that the voices sometimes disappeared in the interpretative process.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews