Umm Khaled’s experience in the patriarchal society

teaching certificate. She then became a teacher, a math and science teacher in an elementary school level in Jerusalem. “I’m working this year as a math and science teacher in an elementary school here in East Jerusalem. I teach third graders. It’s school for girls only. I like my job. I like teaching the students and they like me too, no doubt about it.”Gorkin, 1996:33 Marianne’s experiences in education field is similar to what Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics: Women and Men has revealed, that Palestinian community colleges, especially females, comprise the overwhelming majority of academic, social work, and para-medical graduates 1997:38. It also revealed that the proportion of female teaching staff decreases at higher levels of the educational system.1997: 40 Because of the education itself, the ways of her thinking were broadly opened. One of it was the religion aspect in her. She states that she is not an observant Muslim in the way she dress. “I just don’t like wearing the religious garb – dresses that cover the arms and legs, head coverings. I like to wear skirt and short dresses.” “I know my mother, and I guess my father too, doesn’t feel I’m religious enough.” Gorkin, 1996:21 Those decision-making on the way she dressed, lead to her views towards fundamentalists who looked down on women and too strict about the dresses that women should wear. “Look it’s all right, I’ll wear the hejab and the long dresses. So? Our problem is not what we wear, this or that dress. The important things is what women’s place will be in the society – honourable or not. It’s not the fundamentalist who are forcing us to dress modestly. Islam demands that of us, it’s part of the religion. But look, I know there are some fundamentalists who interpret Islam in an erroneous way. They use the religion to come down on woman. One of these fundamentalists are much too strict with women, always watching them to make sure their behaviour is absolutely proper, always checking to make sure nobody is looking at women. This is not the way to be. I’m against that type of thing.” Gorkin, 1996:32 She also discussed Palestinian kids who joined and involved in intifada. They were all uneducated and not learn anything. Without education like that, they were for sure going to serve Israel as the simple workers, the cheap labor in Israel’s economy. She thought that Palestinian people need educated people to build a Palestinian state. She also said that she will support Hamas, but one condition: everyone is permitted to express their own views. Also, in a state run according to true Islamic principles, women have their rights. “I mean, the right to education, to work, to choose a husband. The fundamentalists here, Hamas, agree with this. They support women’s right to get an education and work alongside men, on the condition that women be dressed modestly and behave properly.” Gorkin, 1996:32 According to Freeman in Women a Feminist Perspective 3 rd Edition, all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the persuade of happiness 1975:493. Besides, Marianne also stated that in the Palestinian society, the existence of male-dominated is more valuable than the women side. It made Marianne thought that in male – dominated society does not mean that men have more value than women. Women are just as valuable as men. Similarly, Marianne thought that women should get more attention and recognition, especially in Palestine, a country where women are at a disadvantage. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

2. Samira’s involvement in Palestinian women’ organization

On the outskirts of Bethlehem, Samira grew up along with her eight brothers and two sisters, and it was here that she got married and raised her two children. At the age of thirty-one, Samira has been a political activist for most of her life and spent three years in jail for throwing a Molotov cocktail at Israeli soldiers. When she speaks, there is an openness about her. When she was at seventh grade, she started to get interested in involving on politics. She finally found things that has become her passion. “From seventh grade on, I began to have some friends who came from outside the camp. We were going to the UNRWA junior high school here together. And it was through them that I began to get interested in politics. I started to write about my feelings —about poverty and suffering. My friends gave me political books to read, things about the Palestinian struggle, books on Marxism and class struggle.” “By the time I got to high school, tenth through twelfth grades, I already had developed strong political opinions. More than that, I had begun to see that I wanted to fight for my views. I was reading all kinds of things – books by Victor Hugo, Maxim Gorky, and more political books. I remember one book that really excited me. It was called Al - Fedaiyin the Guerrillas. It’s a book that talked about the fedaiyin camps in Jordan, the training the fighters went through, and some of the actions they went on. I began to feel I wanted to be like them”. Gorkin, 1996:38 Those quotations of Samira shows that at that time, Samira started to develop herself as a modern educated Palestinian women who were free to get what she wants. She also realized that she had to do something to fight her views, started from reading about political issues of the books. She also stated that her plight as refugees, that means Palestinians’ refugees, Palestinians’ poverty, was the result of a great injustice that had been done to them. The Israelis had come as colonists, they forced the Palestinians out of their villages, and they took Palestinians’ land. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI