14 thoughts on “Palestinian Israeli, Female and Unemployed? It’s Your Own Damn Fault – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
task-attention.png
Comments are published at the sole discretion of the owner.
 

  1. …the low rate of participation of Arab women in the labor market was characteristic of societies in Arab countries.

    This is completely bogus as you pointed out. And your reference to the lack of day care centers for “Arabs” in Israel reminded me that until George Bush so thoughtfully liberated Iraq, mothers who wanted or needed to work, and who did not have servants or family members to care for their children had available high quality state sponsored day care centers, something working mothers in the United States can only dream of.

  2. An amazingly sexist and racist presumption on the part of Yuval Steinitz, but I can’t say that it’s surprising because it seems to reflect the attitude towards Arabs in general – that they are backward, ignorant and incapable of participation in “modern” society. Many times it is not tradition keeping women from getting good jobs; it’s attitudes like Steinitz’. How can a woman work if she cannot arrange care for her children? This situation is found in societies where a woman’s work is not seen as valuable to her society, and to imply that it is only Arab societies with this attitude is racist.

  3. Steinitz is absolutely correct. Notice he says “partially”. Such complexity is apparently beyond the comprehension of the author the Haaretz article and readers of this blog who cannot understand that racism and sexism are not 100% responsible for everything they perceive to be negative. Also notice that the female employment rate in Saudia Arabia, Oman and Morrocco is lower than the total female employment rate in Israel so that the author did not in any way disprove Steinitz’s theory. In Mauritainia over 20% of children aged 10-15 work and child slavery is common (wikipedia) so I wouldn’t look at Mauritania as an exampe.

    1. If he says “partially” but doesn’t acknowledge what the other causation is for this problem then he’s deliberately allowing you to believe that he believes culture is the major cause.

      Don’t be dense, Amir. Steinitz claimed that Israeli Arab women refuse to work for cultural reasons & that their high unemployment level has little or nothing to do with closed economic opportunities. The best way to prove this is true is by comparing the employment levels for women in Arab countries to those of Israeli Arabs. Why should he include Israeli Jewish women in the comparison since they live by an entirely different set of rules & opportunities?

      1. Exactly. Israeli Jewish women and Israeli Arab women live under incomparable circumstances. Steinitz’ claim that cultural restraints prevent Arab women from working is a blanket assumption which smacks of racism. Any close look at the employment opportunities for Arab Israelis in general is going to show that unemployment is higher for Arabs, which is evidence of the apartheid-like society in Israel.

  4. Ha’aretz can’t be trusted because it is too ideologically slanted so I did a google search in Hebrew to see if anyone else covered this conference. This is what Steinitz said according to TheMarker dot com. (my translation): “The treasury has begun a series of discussions with the purpose of increasing participation of Haredim and Arabs in the workforce” He said “the main problem is low participation of Haredi men and Arab women in the workforce.” He said that “Haredi society (or culture) and Arab society (or culture) are partly to blame for their low participation in the workforce”
    It turns out he’s not only racist and sexist, he’s also anti-semitic and sexist against men (/sarcasm).
    This is how low Ha’Aretz has sunk, completely ignoring anything Steinitz said about Haredi men.

    1. There only one problem w. yr comment. TheMarker.com IS Haaretz. There’s no difference bet. the 2 companies.

      Everyone knows that Haredi participation in the work force is low. And everyone knows that the reasons for this have much less to do w. economic than religious/cultural reasons. The Haredi issue is entirely different than the issue of Arabs (men & women). The author of the article leads an NGO concerned specifically with participation of Arab women in the workforce. Hence the subject of the story.

      So much for Haaretz conspiracies…

  5. “The best way to prove this is true is by comparing the employment levels for women in Arab countries to those of Israeli Arabs.” Not true at all and to prove this I will change the wording a bit of the article using the exact same numbers.
    “the finance minister added that the low rate of participation of Arab women in the labor market was characteristic of societies in Arab countries…The number of Arab women employed in Israel is very low … 21.1 percent this is comparable to the rate of women in the workforce in other arab countries. Saudia Arabia 29% and Oman 27%. In Israel, on the other hand, 51.3 of women are in the workforce. Even in Morocco fewer women participate in the workforce than in Israel. 41.9% vs. 51.3%.

    1. So you’ve changed the wording & we’re still as befuddled as before about what you’re talking about. The statistic about all Israeli women is, once again, not applicable since it includes mostly Jewish women who do not face the same obstacles that Arab women do to join the Israeli workforce.

    1. the numbers for Saudi Arabia and Oman look fishy to me

      Now you’re a expert demographer for Arab societies. How gifted you are. Why would the statistics include female foreign workers who are not citizens of the country. That makes no sense whatsoever nor do you have any proof whatsoever that what you guess is true.

      If the numbers in Morocco & Mauritanian reflect poverty & a desperate need for work are you claiming that Israeli Arab families are so well off that the women do not similarly need to work?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *