Israel's treatment of women is hardly that of a democracy

Rachel Shabi



A 'dignified' dress code and gender segregation show Israel is fast becoming bigoted about dissent and difference
While we've been distracted by alarmism over newly elected Islamist leaders enforcing hijabs and bikini bans in the Arab world, Israel is already embroiled in attempts to rein in this unruly matter of female "immodesty".

Last week, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported on businesses in the southern town of Sderot signing up to a "dignified" dress code – whereby female employees must be "modestly" clothed. So far 20 stores have adopted this long-sleeves directive, initiated by a religious group which says it did not actively threaten to boycott non-signatory shops – but which, nonetheless, has considerable buying power. Not surprisingly, the women subjected to this new code have described it as religious coercion.

This is on top of some other instances of an apparent increase in ultra-religious modesty decrees. There have been recent religious pronouncements that men should walk out of army ceremonies where women are singing (immodestly, of course); along with attempts to erase women's faces from billboard advertising and increased attempts to impose gender-segregated queuing in stores.

Last week, religiously imposed gender segregation of buses prompted a stand-off, as a female passenger simply refused to move to the back – despite requests to do so from the bus driver and a police officer called in to sort out the dispute. Dozens of public bus lines used by Israel's ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) sector have been gender-segregated for years. Israel's supreme court tried to reverse this practice a year ago, but balked at actually banning the "women at the back" policy – making it more a voluntary issue.

The woman who stood up to it all sparked a round of indignation at these religious dictates in the Israeli media – and from Israeli leaders, including prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who issued some generic outrage premised on those favourite politico buzzwords: unity and coexistence.

Netanyahu is in a coalition that includes dominant religious parties – a support base he isn't likely to antagonise. Israeli governments are adept at making the right noises over religious enforcements in public spaces, but meanwhile doing nothing to seriously tackle the flourish. Underpinning this is the matter that, while Israel might be secular on the streets, it has never been secular as a state – with fundamentals from birth to death managed in some way by rabbis.

But this vocal protest premised on liberal, secular values is an easy run for Israel's leaders. Gender rights is one of the cornerstones of Israel's self-image as "the only democracy in the Middle East". Officials championing the subject can rely on solid support from mainstream Israelis – still a non-Orthodox majority – who worry that the Haredi sector's influence over public norms is getting out of hand. Part of the public fight-back includes a plan, on New Year's Day, for a mass boarding of gender-segregated buses to challenge this arrangement.

Pointedly, there is a big difference when it comes to defending another component of Israel's "only democracy" calling card: freedom of expression. In that frame, the Israeli government is currently trying to pass a series of laws that salute the spirit of McCarthy, while large sections of the public seem to have approved the line that any criticism of the country is basically treason.

But it seems unlikely that these trends are unrelated. Israel is increasingly becoming a place that's bigoted about dissent and difference. If the landscape as a whole is more aggressively intolerant, why shouldn't that include the Haredi sector, too?