article

Women, the Hajab and the Intifada

MERIP Middle East report • 20 (164/165) • Published In 1990 • Pages: 24-28, 71

By: Hammami, Rema.

Abstract

This is an account of the campaign during the Intifada to impose on all Gaza women the wearing of the HAJIB, or headscarf. Identified with peasant women, the HAJIB was largely dispensed with by a growing educated, urban, and petit bourgeois class of Palestinian women, beginning in the 1950s. In the late 1970s, Hamas revived it use as a sign of piety and political affiliation. In 1988, one year into the intifada, HAMAS waged a campaign to make all women wear the HAJIB, in some cases violently enforced by male youth. When the campaign spread to the West Bank, women resisted and the attacks increased. The Unified National Leadership realized the campaign was too divisive and stepped in to condemn the attacks as unpatriotic and instead praised women's role in the national movement.

HRAF PubDate

2005

Region

Middle East

Sub Region

Middle East

Document Type

article

Evaluation

Creator Type

Ethnologist

Document Rating

4: Excellent Secondary Data

5: Excellent Primary Data

Analyst

Ian Skoggard ; 2004

Field Date

no date

Coverage Date

1948-1990

Coverage Place

Gaza, Occupied Territories, Israel

Notes

Rema Hammami

Includes bibliographical references

LCCN

87641135

LCSH

Palestinian Arabs