Yesterday, women across the country gasped in horror at the scenes of women being violently chased out of Bnei Brak by an angry mob of ultra-religious men. It was a vision of some of our worst fears coming true. The women hid in garbage cannisters until their police rescuers arrived, according to some reports in the Hebrew press. It was a mostly unharmed ending to a terrifying situation. But it could have gone many different ways.

As horrifying as this was, it was hardly surprising. Religious violence against women has already become a norm. And the antipathy of haredi men towards people wearing the IDF uniform was recently etched into Israeli government policy, as I wrote about last week, with the army creating “sterilized” locations for haredi men — that is completely absent of women. So given this reality, why are we surprised to see those sentiments acted upon by a mob? The violent swarm was a natural conclusion to years of acculturation that has now become the official norm.

This is only part of the story of erasing women

The government’s willingness to kick women out of army locations has many far-reaching implications for women and society in general.

For one thing, army service is a crucial station in Israeli society for determining leadership and decision-making. As such, the consequences of women’s exclusion from the IDF roles are broad.  Despite all the very hard-earned gains that women have fought for in their army service, the IDF is treating women as expendable, and is willing to put women’s advancement backwards in order to accommodate religious men. Religious leaders are ready to turn women’s exclusion into formal policy and law.  

There’s more. These exclusions can potentially affect women’s entire lives. Women’s exclusion from army leadership and visibility also potentially affects the rest of their professional lives. Indeed, the army has long served as one of Israel’s most powerful institutions for shaping social norms, authority, and access to leadership. In Israeli society, the IDF hierarchy is the single biggest determining factor in who gains political and economic power. To wit, almost all the leading candidates to be next prime minister are former army elite – Netanyahu, Bennett, Eizenkot, Gallant, Gantz, and even left-wing Yair Golan. These guys are all generals or army brass. In an election year in which not a single party is led by a woman, and not a single government office has a female Director-General, we can very clearly see this overlap. 

In short, in Israeli society, army........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)