The Kamala Effect on Women — even in Israel?

Women historically don’t vote for women. At least not as a voting bloc.

Exhibition A: The American elections, 2016. Had women prioritized gender, or supporting a woman whose career was about supporting women, well, we would be in an alternative universe…

This problem goes to some deeper gender patterns. Women in general put other things before our own needs. We are generally socialized to consider everyone else in the room, to place qualifiers before our requests, to avoid demanding too strongly for ourselves, and to offer a lot of reasons/excuses why other things are more important. Things like our reproductive health, gender pay gaps, housing insecurity, sexual violence, women’s leadership — issues that have particular urgency for women are often sidelined as second-tier priorities, often even by women. What comes before women’s needs? Anything really — the economy, security, traffic, stock prices, “but her emails”. Whatever.

You can hear this chatter throughout the political discourse in both the United States and Israel.

Gender issues?! C’mon, there’s a war going on!

“Identity politics”? Get serious. We have “real” issues to discuss.

Playing the “woman card”? Find me a real candidate.

Like the time in 2014 when the Knesset was discussing a bill about sexual harassment and then MK Moshe Feiglin said that there was a war going on and therefore this was not the time to discuss “fairies and rainbows“.

Did you catch that? Women’s well-being and protections are like “fairies and rainbows”. Harumph.

This is a shame because if women would prioritize women, we could have real power. If only we could be a little bit more like the haredi population and put our needs first, we might actually vote like a bloc and make some real changes.

This might be about to change in the United States. According to most polls, there is a major gender gap in support for Kamala Harris right now. It seems that American women, especially those in their twenties and thirties, are ready to prioritize women’s needs. The upcoming presidential election might just signal a new era for women in politics, and teach women to prioritize our own needs.

And what about in Israel?

But, alas, nothing like this seems to have happened in in Israel — yet. This government has taken women’s advances backwards by closing down the Office of Gender Equality, decreasing representation to the point of zero women in many locations — no women in the security cabinet, no women heading government offices, and very few in the sitting cabinet — and completely ignoring the myriad of women’s groups protesting literally every day on the streets all over Israel.

What’s worse, among the few women with power in this coalition, none have prioritized women as a group. A few distressing examples:

• MK May Golan, the anti-feminist who is officially in charge of the Knesset Committee for Gender Equality, calls herself a “proud racist” and has spent the entire war attacking feminists and effectively tagging us as aligned with terrorists.
• MK Limor Son Har Melech who teaches her kids from the age of two years old to kill Arabs, who promotes settler attacks on innocent Palestinians and is eager to see Palestinian villages disappear, actually organized a Knesset conference to promote religious gender segregation, and refused to allow women’s groups to attend.
• Minister Orit Struck, self-appointed mouthpiece of the homophobic religious right, who thinks doctors should have the right to refuse treatment to members of the LGBTQ community, who has spent this war opposing the return of hostages as if they are lesser people, and who meanwhile has siphoned tens of millions of shekels for her own pet projects in the West Bank, with her violent posse.
• Minister Miri Regev, the highest ranking woman in Likud, who has done absolutely nothing for women in her career (other than for herself), and has been exposed as one of the most corrupt politicians in Israel’s history, literally using the transport ministry as her own personal stash of prizes to give the party operatives who get her votes.
• Tali Gotliv, PM Netanyahu’s pick for the one “women’s spot” on his party list, has made her career out of defending rapists and attacking women who are victims of sexual assault, saying they are making it up or that they deserved it, and has been an overall toxic, vile disaster of a public servant, if you can even call her that.

None of these women have ever put the needs of women first. Or equality and justice in general. Like most of the people in this self-serving government, the women at the top have demonstrated zero commitment to the well-being of the nation, and have left women’s needs at the very bottom of the list of collective priorities.

Israeli feminism under attack — by anti-feminist women

Against this backdrop, an astonishing thing happened recently. When a feminist advocate pointed out that the few women in government are sending women as a group backward, suddenly the Knesset coalition women got huffy about it.

Here’s what happened Prof Dafna Hacker of the Law Faculty and Women and Gender Studies Program at Tel Aviv University and chair of the Israel Women’s Network, said, “When it comes to this current government, I’m not going to fight for more women around the table, because they’re horrible politicians. They are anti-feminist politicians in this government who are female. So what if they’re women? If they are anti-feminist, then why should I fight for them to be around the table.”

And then, Knesset member Michal Waldiger of the Religious Zionism Party called on Professor Hacker to resign. “We are witnessing an unfortunate phenomenon in which, ironically, the chairperson of the Women’s Network, Professor Dafna Hacker, chooses to discriminate against women based on their political affiliation,” Waldiger said at the Knesset.

To be clear, I’m 100% on Team Dafna Hacker. And I say that with a lot of pain and torment. How horrible must it be for someone who has dedicated their lives to the advancement of women to come to a point in the journey where the best thing for women is to NOT support the women on top. It’s head-spinning.

I know how awful this is. I’ve been grappling with this for a while, with the reality that in order to advance women, we have to sometimes NOT support certain women.

I think of it as the Obama-Palin dilemma. When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, and Sarah Palin was running as VP against him, the question was, who should women vote for? Support the woman because she’s a woman, even if she brings with her ideas that will set women back by generations, or support the man who would more likely advance a policy agenda that protects and advances women?

The answer is, support Obama. But it’s a crushing dilemma. Because advocates for women want to see women in leadership positions. But we often face the reality that many women seeking power are actually terrible for women.

When toxic women are in charge

In case this isn’t migraine-inducing enough, the reaction from the coalition women was swift and toxic. In this moment of faux-outrage, the women who have spent their careers attacking feminists while doing nothing to advance women as a group are now suddenly screaming at these same feminists for pushing back at their internalized misogyny. Suddenly the anti-feminist women are claiming feminist tools — not to actually look after women’s needs as a whole, but rather to protect themselves. And grab the opportunity to attack feminists.

Let’s unpack this. This MK is kvetching that feminist groups dedicated to the advancement of women should support women leaders no matter what they do or what ideas they promote, over all men. This right-wing religious woman whose government is one of the worst governments for women ever is suddenly being all pouty, like why are the women’s groups so mean to us right wing religious women?

Again, it’s fake outrage used as an excuse to attack feminism.

To be clear, again: Anti-feminist women are not victims. Anti-women women who have spent their life attacking pro-women women should not be crying to those women to protect them.

It’s also misogyny in disguise. Accusing women of being hypocrites is one of the oldest toxic tactics in the world. Any woman who wants to be viewed as a leader worthy of the support of me or any other feminist group has to do exactly one thing; prioritize the needs of women. as a group. Period.

Can Kamala Harris influence Israeli women’s voting habits?

Despite these depressing events in the government, Israeli women have been very active. At least half a dozen women’s groups have been created since October 7, each one creating a movement to advocate for hostage release, ceasefire agreements, and a change in government. Mothers’ marches take place nearly every week. And while a gender agenda still feels like too much for Israelis to grapple with, the presence of women on the protest podiums week after week calling for systemic change have potentially changed the public discourse. Their voices have not yet led to the outcomes we seek, but the streets of Israel are quaking.

I would like to believe that women as a group are getting smarter. Certainly American women seem to be smarter today than we were in 2016. We have seen the effects of complacency about gender. We have seen the unraveling of women’s reproductive rights. And we have witnessed countless examples of everyday sexism and micro-violence that continue to effect our lives. And American women are very possibly on the brink of a major shift in their electoral power, a crashing down of the ultimate glass ceiling — by someone who absolutely gets women’s issues and is fully dedicated to protecting them.

I can’t help but wonder how these shifts may effect Israel. I would very much like to see Israeli women translate our collective needs into  electoral power.  But that requires some work. We need a strategy to fight for women’s rights that includes convincing women to put the needs of women first. To understand that supporting women means supporting not just any women, but women who stand for values of justice, compassion, equality, fairness, and humanity.

Because when women who hold these values are in positions of leadership, things can change. It happened in New Zealand under Jacinda Arden, and in Germany under Angela Merkel. We need women in Israel who stand for those values in positions of leadership. And then, you can be sure, women like me – and hopefully Prof Hacker – will eagerly get behind them.

Although first we have to do the really hard work of convincing women to prioritize our needs as a group. That remains a big challenge.

I’m hoping when Kamala Harris wins in November, it will inspire change in Israel, too.

Want to chat more about this? Follow my podcast Women Ending War, with my co-host Eva Dalak.Change IS possible. And women CAN lead the way.