Umm Mahmud’s experience in the patriarchal society
The forces that occurred in the family are seen as the patriarchy rules. It was done by the fathers as their way to protect the authority of men. In Palestinian
society, consequently, many Palestinian men tend to believe that any threat to their inherent male superiority or to what they and society perceive as male privileges
justifies the use force Dobash et all, 1992:16. Another occurrence of patriarchal practice was about their indecisiveness to
tell what they want as women directly. In that case, girls at that time were so obedient and afraid of their father.
“My mother did not want to get married, but back then you married when your father told you to marry. You did not dare say anything.”
“I was sixteen years old. My father said “Yes”, “Khalas”, you’re marrying this one.”
“But back then I had no choice. My father decided and I had to go along.” Gorkin, 1996:46-48
Regarding to that situation, the patriarchal rules occurred in the family. The girls or the women at that time do what their father wants to do. Umm Abdullah in
this context also said that God has brought the Palestinians to their fate now because of all the ways they have treated their women. Furthermore, she stated that a woman
had a hard life in those days. They worked in the house and the fields and they had to take care of their children. She also said there were no mercy for women when
they were pregnant. They had to go to the market carrying baskets on their head and in their hands, all while they were pregnant. They would work in the fields too,
right until they gave birth. According to Umm Abdullah, Palestinian men made women work all day in the fields, made them carry heavy loads on their heads, and
gave them only a few hours rest each night. From her perspective, we can see that men have absolute dominance over women, things that had happened for a long
time there. This case is similar to what Viola Klein stated in The historical background of feminism. The endeavour to reinstate women in the economic
process, on the one hand, and to restrict the size of families, on the other, has continued from then on up to the present day. At all times, however, the common
characteristic of women’s work, as contrasted with men’s, was, first of all, that it was subsidiary i.e., that it involved assisting the men of the family fathers,
husbands, brothers rather than independent; secondly, and closely connected with this fact, that it was paid at a lower rate, if it received any payment at all, and was
not included in the family wage; and, thirdly, that it was mostly unskilled. Klein, 1973:521