The Women Are Marching: The Second Sex and the Palestinian Revolution

Strum, a Brooklyn College political science professor and a Jew who lived for intervals between 1989 and 1991 in the West Bank town of Ramallah, here seeks to present a fresh, in-depth perspective on the changing sexual and social roles of Palestinian women as a result of the intifada . Strum details the founding of the Women's Work Committee by educated Palestinian women in 1978 and subsequent grassroots recruiting attempts, women's ingenuity in protecting Palestinian men from Israeli soldiers, and the challenges posed to gender roles in a society where women traditionally were not supposed to leave the house. Strum raises disturbing questions about the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism on West Bank women's lives and about whether women's advances will outlive the occupation. Generally, though, Strum's account is colored by her admitted ``sympathy for the Palestinian independence movement'' and a focus more on the Palestinian cause than on a broader cultural and historical context for discussion of women's roles. Photos not seen by PW . (July)