The women are marching

"Interweaving the first comprehensive account of the Palestinian feminist movement with the diary of her experiences as an American Jew living with a Palestinian family in the West Bank, political scientist and human rights activist Philippa Strum tells a dramatic story that virtually all of the international media have ignored. In just five years Palestinian women have not only overcome centuries of isolation, dependence, and repressive gender roles, but they have emerged--and will remain--a key force behind the popular struggle known as the intifada and a significant threat to Israeli control over the occupied territories." "Before the onset of the intifada in 1987, most Palestinian women rarely left their homes, and could do so only if escorted by a female relative. They could not divorce their husbands, and if a Palestinian woman was sexually harassed or abused, she was ostracized from the community and could even be killed. Three months after the intifada began, with no recourse to law or redress in the face of the arrests, the beatings, the torture, and the shootings by the Israeli military, Palestinian women took to the streets, holding more than one hundred marches a week.