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Women's success in politics may be a hollow victory
By Avirama Golan
Tags: israel news, tzipi livni 

The big winner in the "Who's appointing more women to realistic spots on their party's list?" contest is Avigdor Lieberman. His decision to promote former model Orly Levy to the sixth spot and Anastasia Michaeli to the 10th spot has certainly managed to blur Yisrael Beitenu's extremist line, giving it a more attractive profile.

In the recent party primaries, not one party was willing to offer voters an exclusively male list. The Hadash primary was notable for the candidacy of Aida Tuma-Suleiman, who is listed in an unrealistic spot, though not because of her gender; Hadash is represented on the Acre city council by a talented young woman named Reem Hazzan.

Now we have a female foreign minister (Tzipi Livni) who is running for prime minister, a female Knesset Speaker (Dalia Itzik) who took the top spot in her party's primary, a female education minister (Yuli Tamir) who maintained a respectable spot in her party, and a female former journalist, Shelly Yachimovich, who jumped into the turbulent political waters just two years ago and has already secured a spot among the Labor party's top five candidates.
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Was it the tenacious demand by female politicians from previous generations to have spots reserved for women on every party list that brought about the change or is it due to influences from abroad? Or perhaps this shift in politics is really a continuation, or an outgrowth, of changes in other realms of society, in academia and economics, where women are attaining an increasing number of senior positions.

This hasn't really happened yet. First, because the ways of the Western world are not indicative of the world as a whole; in most of the world, especially in Third World countries, women still fill traditional roles. Progress and globalization have loaded the stooped backs of these women with even heavier burdens, as Barbara Ehrenreich documented in her book "Global Woman." Now, in addition to sustaining the old social order (as mothers, caregivers, the ones responsible for looking after the family and its honor), they also must keep the economy rolling by means of strenuous physical labor, often with their own bodies.

Second, the new place being attained by women in Israeli politics should be regarded cautiously. Orly Levy may turn out to be a talented and diligent politician (Remember, she was brought up in a strongly political household and her brothers are also politically active), but at this point she is no more than an attractive decoration whose purpose is to break the party's "Russian" image. The difference between her and Shelly Yachimovich isn't that the latter is not a former model and the daughter of a former minister, but that Yachimovich, like leading women in the old male politics (Shulamit Aloni, Tamar Gozanksy), made a name for herself in the spheres in which she worked and has always lived and breathed a certain worldview and evinced a high degree of sociopolitical involvement.

The most fascinating example is Angela Merkel, who is firmly running one of Europe's most conservative political systems. But Merkel, a professor from East Germany, is the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that even in countries that have made permanent a high percentage of reserved spots for women in parliament (over 25 percent in Germany and 50 percent in Sweden), strong men are still the ones who promote women to key positions. The result is not particularly heartwarming.

The typical example cited is the seven women whom Nicolas Sarkozy appointed to serve in his government. At first, he gained approval and basked in the attention given to their beauty and to the (young or foreign) feminine glamour they added to his government. But once the government's honeymoon period ended, these women have been on the receiving end of most of the anger, frustration and disappointment coming from the President's office. Sarkozy recently scolded his justice minister, Rachida Dati, because of friction between her and senior justice officials. The scene, say others who were present, was like that of a rebellious pupil being made to stand in the corner.

France's junior minister for human rights, 32-year-old Rama Yade, also managed to upset the French president with her independent and aggressive conduct, and her own boss, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, also remarked that "it's too bad she was appointed." Now the junior minister for urban affairs, Fadela Amara, the former chairwoman of the feminist organization Ni Putes Ni Soumises, housing minister Christine Boutin and Interior Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie, all of whom are serious and experienced politicians, are lowering their profile to avoid the president's fury. They could perhaps take solace in the fact that male ministers are also frequently the objects of the president's angry outbursts, but his exasperation with the women sounds harsher, more personal and unrestrained.

The French press hasn't given the new women ministers a grace period, either. The more feminine and popular they are, the greater the irrelevant criticism and the focus on their wardrobes and social ties. And the more open and accessible they are, and the less they belong to the traditional Class Politique and the less formal and fossilized their behavior runs contrary to the conservative male style, the more they are scorned by their colleagues and by political analysts.

The feminization of professions is always perceived at first as a female victory, but before long it turns out to be a dubious business for women. Who can recall the days when the education system, the welfare bureaus, the press, the prosecutor's office and the courts were staffed almost entirely by men? It's hard to say exactly when these fields began to lose their prestige, or what led to what: Did more women begin to work in teaching, journalism and law because men lost interest in these fields, having realized that they weren't sufficiently influential or lucrative, or did these professions lose some of their appeal for men because more women began working in them?

Plenty of well-known figures have crudely disparaged women in the legal profession (For example, in an interview with Haaretz Magazine attorney Yehoshua Reznik spoke of the problem with the "female hegemony" in the legal system, pointing out that women are more easily moved and made to cry than men) and about women journalists (the term "barracuda" has never been applied to a male reporter; it is reserved for women journalists). The erosion of the prestige of these professions only underscores the large wage discrepancy between them and the more coveted professions, particularly in the world of business.

Now the process has come to politics, and this at a time when politicians may be more despised and less trusted by the public than ever. Given this situation, it seems that men, like the English gentlemen of a bygone time, have come to the realization that hard work is not a source of joy, and that sacrificing one's private life and devoting one's physical and mental energies to the public, and subjecting oneself to the public's critical eye, isn't worth the effort.

So who is leaping at the chance provided by each such crack to get caught up in arduous filed work ahead of the primaries and engage in the daily toil of the Knesset and the power struggles at the cabinet table? Women, of course, because they've waited so long for this opportunity, and are so conscientious and eager, and so experienced in dealing with all the troubles in the world. And once again they are discovering that the man didn't just abandon the field for no reason, but because he discovered that the real power now lies somewhere else: with the one who makes the big money, invests it (also) in politicians, and controls them to suit his needs.

Related articles:
  • New anti-Livni slogan slammed for being sexist
  • Women in politics - Between the glass ceiling and the mud floor
  • Knesset Speaker to launch new, more stringent ethics code
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