Palestinian Women: Identity and Experience (Paperback)

1. Palestinian Women: Between Tradition and Revolution
Najah Manasra

The family is the basic unit of Palestinian society. In her family a Palestinian girl develops her social personality and gains consciousness about her gender. On marriage a woman moves from the sphere of control of her own family into that of her husband. The structure of the Palestinian family determines the role of the Palestinian woman.
Three structurally different types of family are to be found in the Palestinian society of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Differences between families in camps and villages and those in towns reflect differences in the basis and nature of social organization. Whilst cities to a large extent are made up of a collection of individuals and families, camps and especially villages are in most cases highly cohesive structures where extended family units are still the basis of social life. The nuclear family consists of father, mother and her unmarried children. This family type is increasingly found in the towns of the West Bank, but rarely in the refugee camps of the Gaza Strip. The transitional family is a structural mixture of nuclear family and extended family. It consists of the nuclear family, uncles or unmarried aunts and one or two grandparents. This family type is found in the West Bank and the camps of the Gaza Strip. The extended family or hamula consists of all the sons descended from a common grandfather, regardless of where they live, and their wives and children; five generations are included. The members form an economically closed unit headed by the eldest male. The hamula is still one of the most common family structures in the Occupied Territories but its influence on its individual members is on the decline. The decline in family cohesion varies according to location: the social influence of the hamula is strongest in villages and less in camps and towns. A wealthy hamula exercises more power and has more control over its members than does a poor one.
Relationships between families and between individual family members are dominated by religious and traditional norms and values passed on from generation to generation.