Last update - 00:00 07/05/2007
A political glass ceiling
By Na'ama Sheffi
Every morning Jewish men say the prayer "Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hath not made me a woman." They know why: because women have to work more and because women have to behave with determination, aggressiveness and assertiveness - or, in other words, like men - if they want to be accepted by the public.
Recent research studies on the situation of working women in Western countries correspond amazingly well to the situation of Israel's female elected officials: Their hard work is to their disadvantage. They labor extremely hard, but benefit from lower status than their male colleagues, and at the end of the day wish that some male would operate the dishwasher.
Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister of a small country, has been chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In Israel, the political commentator of Channel 10, Aviv Drucker, has crowned her a "nonentity." These polarized approaches have a similar basis: Livni's restrained directness is received with admiration in the world, but not in Israel.
Knesset Speaker and Acting President Dalia Itzik, the woman whose coiffure is more fascinating to journalists than what can be found under it, has been working at two jobs for three and a half months now. The Memorial and Independence Day ceremonies all fell to her, in both her capacities. Somehow, no one noticed either this or the political messages in the speeches she made at these ceremonies. A man would certainly have been given a flattering description of his talent for multi-tasking.
Golda Meir, the only woman ever to serve as prime minister of Israel, was called "the only man in the government." Despite the fact that her femininity began and ended with the shoes she wore, which were mandatory for all women who served in the Israel Defense Forces, and a handbag that looked as if it were left over from the production line of a kolkhoz in Siberia - in the cartoons she always appeared wearing an apron in her political kitchen. Her political career ended because of an arrogance that exacted the price of the lives of thousands of soldiers, without anyone reminding anyone else that she had never worn a uniform and in any event was not a general.
Women are not particularly prominent in the Israeli political arena. In the first Knesset they constituted 10 percent of the members, in the 7th and 14th Knessets they constituted less than 6 percent, and in the 16th Knesset - 20 percent. The average proportion of women in all the Knessets has been about 11 percent. A minority of them took their seats as a result of the policy of reserving places for women, reverse discrimination, practiced in their political parties.
Perhaps this is men's way of balancing out the inequality in the strength of their elbows and those of women. Perhaps this is the world's way of moderating its inbuilt tensions.
A petition by the Israel Women's Network to the High Court of Justice against the government of Israel culminated in a court order to transfer out of their positions male directors, who had been chosen without an attempt being made to find a suitable woman for the position. Thus, when society does not regulate itself, the institutions of the regime intervene, but men are the dominant element in them and it is they who determine the spirit of the change.
What has happened to Livni this past week is only a reminder of the situation of Israel's female politicians. They encounter harsh criticism that only rarely would be directed toward their male colleagues. Their gender, and not their qualifications, acts to their disadvantage, whether they behave with a gentle hand or with a sharp tongue. What is acceptable for men can become controversial if it is done by a woman.
The harsh reactions that women encounter whenever they do not abide by male codes are an important component of the glass ceiling that stops their progress. Moreover, these responses play a key part in women's reservations about entering the lions' den that awaits them in the masculine corridors of the highly regarded professions.
Israel is demanding for itself the status of a modern Western society, but on the political plane it acts in accordance with conservative codes. Women are invited to vote and to be elected, but once they are elected they are constantly required to prove that they are worthy of their right to serve the public. They succeed in surviving in the political world only by enveloping themselves in masculine codes or by means of ignoring the scornful barbs that are fired at them all the time.
The author is head of the department of communications at Sapir Academic College.