The Institute for Arab Women's Studies hopes to respond to what Ghada Talhami correctly describes in the preface to Images and Reality as "the near-total silence in academia on the contributions of Palestinian women to the process of nation building" by publishing studies on Arab feminism in general and Palestinian feminism in particular. In this, the first of a projected series, it provides an excellent introduction to some of the problems faced by Palestinian women. Topics include the coverage of women in West Bank newspapers (Orayb Najjar), the transformation of the situation of women under occupation (Talhami), the education of West Bank women (Sarah Graham Brown), continuity and changes in Palestinian culture as evidenced in a song sung at a Palestinian wedding in Kuwait (Taghreed Alqudsi-Ghabra), and the particular quandaries encountered by Palestinian women in the US (Louise Cainkar).
Several themes, not entirely articulated, appear and reappear throughout the articles. The first is the indisputably patriarchal nature of Palestinian society, manifested in the sexist articles written by (male) Palestinian journalists, the readiness of rural Palestinian families to sacrifice their daughters' education for their short-term use as laborers, the willingness of Palestinian families in the United States to permit their sons, but not their daughters, to grow up "American," and the continuing control by men of the image of women as expressed in song.
A second theme concerns the effects of occupation upon Palestinian women. Talhami points out, for example, that Israeli tax laws, land confiscations, and political repression have led to out-migration of men, leaving many families headed by women. The difficult economic situation also has resulted in women joining the paid work force, but only as non-unionized workers. Consequently, they are exploited by their employers on Israeli farms and their Palestinian employers in the West Bank sewing factories.
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