By: Ernie Lightman
I recently returned from a research trip to Israel where I met with colleagues on the left, both academics and community activists. It seems their universities are facing a gender-religion dilemma comparable to a recent occurrence at York University in Toronto.
Remember the case of the male student at York – identity undefined but presumably Muslim or ultra-Orthodox Jewish – who was unwilling to attend a seminar at which women would be present?
Well, In Israel, they have the same problem, only in reverse, and affecting large numbers of students. Many young ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, and observant Muslim women, want to attend university, specifically social work programs, but are unwilling (or are prevented by their families and communities) from enrolling in classes where male students will be present. That is to say, they demand special classes for women-only.
Both these groups in Israel experience limited labour force involvement for a variety of cultural and ‘religious’ reasons, and the social desirability of equipping them with marketable skills is self-evident. But the price demanded is overt gender segregation.
At York, you’ll recall, the professor was unwilling to accommodate the student’s request for an alternate arrangement, to avoid the need to attend the seminar with women present. (And let’s remember the department is sociology, where female students are typically in the majority). The York administration, eager to display its cultural sensitivity, and anxious for the whole problem to disappear, wanted the professor to accommodate. The professor refused. Most of the commentary I’ve seen supported the professor, consigning the administration to an absurd irrelevance.
In Israel the problem is writ on a much larger scale, affecting most of the universities in the country. For example, though I don’t know the total numbers of ultra-Orthodox and observant Muslim women, in Jerusalem alone, the Arab (Muslim) and ultra-Orthodox populations, men and women together, constitute a majority of the city’s total population. So we are not dealing with small numbers.
Each Israeli university department of social work has addressed this issue in its own way. Surprisingly perhaps there is overwhelming support within social work education, in choosing to meet the requests of the affected communities, but this is not always reinforced by the universities at large. Haifa University has had gender-specific classes for some time (using a separate delivery mechanism) and the teaching faculty at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (which includes both Arabs and Jews, male and female), recently voted 100% in favour of doing the same. It wasn’t even much of an issue for the faculty who, I might add, cover the full political spectrum in their broader political orientations. However, the Senate at the Jerusalem university was unwilling to sign off on the gender-specific classes, because of the explicit gender inequality, and so the initiative expired.
Community activists I spoke to – a small non-random sample - were equally or perhaps even more supportive of the plan to teach the women separately.
I recently returned from a research trip to Israel where I met with colleagues on the left, both academics and community activists. It seems their universities are facing a gender-religion dilemma comparable to a recent occurrence at York University in Toronto.
Remember the case of the male student at York – identity undefined but presumably Muslim or ultra-Orthodox Jewish – who was unwilling to attend a seminar at which women would be present?
Well, In Israel, they have the same problem, only in reverse, and affecting large numbers of students. Many young ultra-Orthodox Jewish women, and observant Muslim women, want to attend university, specifically social work programs, but are unwilling (or are prevented by their families and communities) from enrolling in classes where male students will be present. That is to say, they demand special classes for women-only.
Both these groups in Israel experience limited labour force involvement for a variety of cultural and ‘religious’ reasons, and the social desirability of equipping them with marketable skills is self-evident. But the price demanded is overt gender segregation.
At York, you’ll recall, the professor was unwilling to accommodate the student’s request for an alternate arrangement, to avoid the need to attend the seminar with women present. (And let’s remember the department is sociology, where female students are typically in the majority). The York administration, eager to display its cultural sensitivity, and anxious for the whole problem to disappear, wanted the professor to accommodate. The professor refused. Most of the commentary I’ve seen supported the professor, consigning the administration to an absurd irrelevance.
In Israel the problem is writ on a much larger scale, affecting most of the universities in the country. For example, though I don’t know the total numbers of ultra-Orthodox and observant Muslim women, in Jerusalem alone, the Arab (Muslim) and ultra-Orthodox populations, men and women together, constitute a majority of the city’s total population. So we are not dealing with small numbers.
Each Israeli university department of social work has addressed this issue in its own way. Surprisingly perhaps there is overwhelming support within social work education, in choosing to meet the requests of the affected communities, but this is not always reinforced by the universities at large. Haifa University has had gender-specific classes for some time (using a separate delivery mechanism) and the teaching faculty at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (which includes both Arabs and Jews, male and female), recently voted 100% in favour of doing the same. It wasn’t even much of an issue for the faculty who, I might add, cover the full political spectrum in their broader political orientations. However, the Senate at the Jerusalem university was unwilling to sign off on the gender-specific classes, because of the explicit gender inequality, and so the initiative expired.
Community activists I spoke to – a small non-random sample - were equally or perhaps even more supportive of the plan to teach the women separately.
Comments
Post a Comment